Ṭarafah argues that storing wealth cannot make life permanent; he therefore favors spending and enjoying what he possesses. The contrast between karīm and bakhīl invokes generosity, but the speaker also uses his mortality argument to justify drinking and indulgence as personal choices.
A distinction is essential. Death eventually reaches everyone is a broadly intelligible claim; it does not by itself establish the moral permissibility of every expenditure or pleasure. Literary study should explain how the speaker constructs his argument and where it does not amount to a universal ethical rule, without changing the text’s sense.