Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Ernest Becker • The Denial of Death
Since the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death, every culture must provide its members with an intricate symbolic system that is covertly religious. This means that ideological conflicts between cultures are essentially battles between immortality projects, holy wars. One
Ernest Becker • The Denial of Death
Martin Heidegger:
"If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself." ― Martin Heidegger
“The modern man is always claiming a self-sufficiency which he is unable to achieve. He constantly compares himself with other people and, afraid that they might be superior, he secretly copies their manners and borrows their desires.”
Leo Nasskau • René Girard, mimetic desire, and society's biggest rat race
A great German philosopher argued that humans are precisely those creatures who always have their past with them and are always living toward their future, and that it is awareness of mortality that gives human life meaning, an idea that classical Tantra also embraced.**
Christopher D. Wallis • Near Enemies of the Truth: Avoid the Pitfalls of the Spiritual Life and Become Radically Free
Becker argues that the only way to transcend these existential fears is to live a life that feels heroic. He argues that “if everyone honestly admitted his urge to be a hero it would be a devastating release of truth.”