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What the Dying Teach the Living
Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human deat... See more
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
The only real question about all this finitude is whether we’re willing to confront it or not. And this, for Heidegger, is the central challenge of human existence: since finitude defines our lives, he argues that living a truly authentic life—becoming fully human—means facing up to that fact. We must live out our lives, to whatever extent we can, ... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
talk about it.” We know that media vita in morte sumus or, “in the midst of life we are in death.” We begin dying the day we are born, after all.
Caitlin Doughty • Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
Many reported a diminishment of their fears of other people, a greater willingness to take risks, and less concern about rejection. One of my patients … said to me, ‘What a pity I had to wait until now, till my body was riddled with cancer, to learn how to live!’7