The Denial of Death

had talked myself into the project in order to calm my fears rather than as something I was excited to work on. I committed to not making the same mistake again. American anthropologist Ernest Becker was convinced that most of our actions in life are driven by a fear of death. Behind my money fears was a longing to feel that my life mattered. I sus

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I am a father not because I will die but because I am committed to my child, which makes me answerable for what I do as a father and gives me reasons for acting. My practical identity as a father and my reasons for acting can only matter, however, against the horizon of my death. To have a reason for acting is to have a priority and the urgency of

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We see the void and it terrifies us; it looks to us like utter negation. So we try to set up something in life that affirms our existence. Against death, which we see as the ultimate failure, we offer up success. Against death, which we see as the ultimate emptiness, we offer up the acquisition of objects. Against death, which we see as the end of

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There are two traditional ways of addressing this material death and the anxiety it may provoke. The first is to argue that we have an immortal soul that is separate from the decomposing matter of our bodies. Even though our bodies perish, we do not really die but ascend to a higher existence, independent of any body or endowed with an incorruptibl

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