Somehow I think that real awareness of one's own mortality would be even more paralyzing than the desire to forget about it.
If we avoid death then it seems like we do it because we value our lives, just as we'd avoid any loss because we valued the thing that could be lost.
There's a powerful nihilistic streak in humans. We look at death and see it as essentially invalidating our entire existence - it all comes to nothing; why do anything if we're just going to die?
I can't help but think that it's our momentary ignorance of our impending doom, our faith that it won't touch us at least right now, that makes us willing to live life to the fullest.
It's when we recognize "That could kill me", that we become afraid to act. It's when we hear the clock running down that panic sets in and we freeze in Death's headlights.
Teenage boys do the crazy sh!t they do because their raging hormones have got them thinking that they're invincible. Would a grown man, who knows all too well that this isn't the case, do the same? No; he wouldn't do anything to make his inevitable end come any sooner than it has to. Granted, this is an extreme case, but I believe that the rationale is essentially true.
If we avoid death then it seems like we do it because we value our lives, just as we'd avoid any loss because we valued the thing that could be lost.
There's a powerful nihilistic streak in humans. We look at death and see it as essentially invalidating our entire existence - it all comes to nothing; why do anything if we're just going to die?
I can't help but think that it's our momentary ignorance of our impending doom, our faith that it won't touch us at least right now, that makes us willing to live life to the fullest.
It's when we recognize "That could kill me", that we become afraid to act. It's when we hear the clock running down that panic sets in and we freeze in Death's headlights.
Teenage boys do the crazy sh!t they do because their raging hormones have got them thinking that they're invincible. Would a grown man, who knows all too well that this isn't the case, do the same? No; he wouldn't do anything to make his inevitable end come any sooner than it has to. Granted, this is an extreme case, but I believe that the rationale is essentially true.
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