The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
E560749
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead is a nonfiction book by David Shields that blends memoir, scientific research, and philosophical reflection to explore mortality and the human body across the lifespan.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5996932 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead Context triple: [David Shields, notableWork, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead]
-
A.
The Day I Tried to Live
"The Day I Tried to Live" is a 1994 grunge/alternative rock song by Soundgarden, known for its dark, introspective lyrics and dynamic, heavy sound.
-
B.
The Point of It All
The Point of It All is a soulful R&B album by American singer Anthony Hamilton, known for its rich vocals, heartfelt lyrics, and classic neo-soul production.
-
C.
Talk to Her
Talk to Her is a 2002 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar that explores themes of love, loneliness, and communication through the intertwined lives of two men caring for women in comas.
-
D.
The Dead and the Living
The Dead and the Living is a critically acclaimed poetry collection by Sharon Olds that explores themes of family, violence, and mortality in vivid, confessional verse.
-
E.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is David Foster Wallace’s acclaimed collection of essays blending sharp cultural criticism, memoir, and humor, best known for its long, digressive piece on a luxury cruise.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead Target entity description: The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead is a nonfiction book by David Shields that blends memoir, scientific research, and philosophical reflection to explore mortality and the human body across the lifespan.
-
A.
The Day I Tried to Live
"The Day I Tried to Live" is a 1994 grunge/alternative rock song by Soundgarden, known for its dark, introspective lyrics and dynamic, heavy sound.
-
B.
The Point of It All
The Point of It All is a soulful R&B album by American singer Anthony Hamilton, known for its rich vocals, heartfelt lyrics, and classic neo-soul production.
-
C.
Talk to Her
Talk to Her is a 2002 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar that explores themes of love, loneliness, and communication through the intertwined lives of two men caring for women in comas.
-
D.
The Dead and the Living
The Dead and the Living is a critically acclaimed poetry collection by Sharon Olds that explores themes of family, violence, and mortality in vivid, confessional verse.
-
E.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is David Foster Wallace’s acclaimed collection of essays blending sharp cultural criticism, memoir, and humor, best known for its long, digressive piece on a luxury cruise.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (31)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | nonfiction book ⓘ |
| author |
David Shields
ⓘ
linked to:
David Shields (writer)
|
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| focusesOn |
author's father
ⓘ
stages of human development ⓘ |
| genre |
memoir
ⓘ
nonfiction ⓘ philosophical literature ⓘ popular science ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
acceptance of mortality
ⓘ
body as biological machine ⓘ fear of death ⓘ impermanence of life ⓘ parent–child relationships ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
David Shields
ⓘ
linked to:
David Shields (writer)
|
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| narrativeForm | blend of memoir and essay ⓘ |
| notableFor |
meditation on mortality
ⓘ
mixing personal narrative with scientific data ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2008 ⓘ |
| publisher | Alfred A. Knopf ⓘ |
| subject |
aging
ⓘ
death ⓘ family relationships ⓘ human body ⓘ lifespan ⓘ mortality ⓘ |
| timePeriodCovered | entire human lifespan ⓘ |
| uses |
philosophical reflection
ⓘ
scientific research ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead Description of subject: The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead is a nonfiction book by David Shields that blends memoir, scientific research, and philosophical reflection to explore mortality and the human body across the lifespan.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
David Shields (writer)