One evening, a scene from a TV drama caught my attention. A man was sobbing on his ex-girlfriend's shoulder. Shamelessly, he poured out his regrets about his father's recent funeral to this woman he had already parted ways with. "I should have spent more time with him... I should have said more..."

For millennia, humanity has sought to define the relationship between life and death and find meaning within it. "Memento Mori," born in ancient Rome, reminds us to "remember death," highlighting human mortality and the finite nature of life. Similarly, "Carpe Diem," Horace's poetic phrase meaning "seize the day," emphasizes living fully in the present. These two philosophies have long served as the fundamental principles of well-dying.

But now we must ask: Is this enough?

While Memento Mori acknowledges the inevitability of death and Carpe Diem emphasizes devotion to the present, both concepts are limited by viewing death as an "end." They lack active reflection on the world after death, on the traces and stories that will remain after we depart.

This is where the "Salm Daum Campaign" begins.

The Salm Daum Campaign redefines death not as an end but as the beginning of a new journey. It goes beyond simply achieving a good death to actively designing and leaving behind one's unique legacy. It is both a philosophical attitude and a practical movement that ensures our values and stories continue to influence the world even after our physical life has ended.

Above all, the Salm Daum Campaign is about making the brief time of separation from our loved ones more comfortable for them and enabling them to live more beautifully. This is precisely why we must embrace the Salm Daum Campaign in our lives. We design our legacy considering what stories and values we'll leave to our families, what wisdom and experience we'll contribute to our communities, what changes and impacts we'll leave on society, and what environmental footprint we'll imprint on planet Earth. While death is a physical separation, our legacy and love flow beyond this separation, providing comfort and inspiration to those left behind across all these dimensions.

The legacy we leave can take various forms. Beyond material inheritance, it includes our knowledge, wisdom, relationship networks, digital content, environmental contributions, and social impact. For our families, we can leave warm memories and values; for our communities, solidarity and belonging; for society, dedication to positive change; and for our planet, efforts toward a sustainable future. Modern technology provides unprecedented methods for recording and transmitting this multi-layered legacy.

Where Memento Mori treats death as an object of fear, the Salm Daum Campaign reinterprets it as the starting point for a creative legacy. While Carpe Diem urges us to focus on today, the Salm Daum Campaign advises us to "design eternity through today."

This is not merely philosophical contemplation but a practical mode of action. We must ask ourselves daily: "What traces am I leaving in the world today?" "How will my life's story continue?" "What values and meaning will survive after I'm gone?" "What gifts can I leave for my loved ones, my family, my community, society, and the Earth?"

This transition from the era of well-dying to the 'Salm Daum' era is a path to overcoming fear of death and discovering life's true meaning. It embraces Memento Mori and Carpe Diem while exploring a mode of existence that transcends them.

The Salm Daum Campaign acknowledges human finitude while declaring that our influence can expand infinitely. Death is no longer an end but a new starting point where our legacy meets our family, community, society, and the Earth.

Now we must move beyond asking "How will I die?" to ask "What will remain after my life?" This is the essence of the Salm Daum Campaign and the nature of the new relationship modern people must forge with death.