
How to not fear your death: An Epicurean perspective - diodorus
https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-use-philosophy-to-overcome-the-fear-of-your-own-death
======
tilolebo
I don't really fear dying, I also don't fear being dead.

But the fact that I won't be anymore, FOREVER: that is what literally gives me
the chills everytime I think about it.

God, I really hope there's something after death.

~~~
freeflight
_> God, I really hope there's something after death._

There is something, it's the same thing that was before your birth, in that
sense so you are very much just returning to your natural state: You have been
not born for the longest time and you will be dead for the longest time.

In that context this rather short experience of existence is actually the
thing that's out of the ordinary, making it that much more valuable.

~~~
tilolebo
That's exactly what makes it scary to me.

It feels so normal to sit there on my couch, writing this message from my
smartphone.

But in fact life is just a ridiculously short period at the scale of... Of
what, actually?

How long have I not been born, and how long will I be dead? Trying to make
sense of it is what makes me anxious.

~~~
garaetjjte
Yeah, reading about events on cosmological scale (galaxy, blackhole formation,
etc.) usually ends up in existential dread feeling for me.

~~~
freeflight
I guess it's a matter of perspective.

When I look at these things I'm amazed that I'm part of these scales, or as
Carl Sagan put it: "We are made of star stuff".

Once I'm dead, the elements my body consists of will go back into that eternal
cycle, making me once again a part of the whole or maybe even part of evolving
into something completely new.

While my non-corporeal parts, my consciousness, my character, will hopefully
be fondly remembered by family and friends.

At least that's how I found a bit of peace of mind after having suffered from
anxiety and existential dread for most of my youth.

------
picodguyo
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think most people fear the state of being dead,
which is what this essay is centered around. "Fear of death" is more commonly
the fear of the approach of the end of life, ranging from the prolonged
downward slide into decrepitude or terminal illness on one end of the spectrum
to the physically violent moments of struggle against death on the other end.

In other words, if you were 100% guaranteed to die by instant vaporization at
some random time in the last quarter of life with no forewarning, would you
still fear death?

~~~
garaetjjte
Yes, I would. Thinking about that I will cease to exist sometime is most
terrifying.

~~~
grugagag
To me it’s more terrifying to think that I might loose my mind to dementia or
alzheimer’s, that I might not know who i am, who i was, who my children are..
that’s terrifying. Though I think this experience is even worse for the
others. My grandmother had alzheimers and in the last stage she was serene and
smiling..

~~~
pc86
If your mind is gone, are you still you? Unless you believe that each human
has a unique soul, there's not much left to make you _you_ except your mind.
And after a disease has attacked your mind, you might as well already be dead
physically because you are a completely different person.

~~~
guerrilla
Does that matter? If you poke that person, won't they still hurt regardless of
who they are?

~~~
pc86
That seems irrelevant. I didn't say they weren't _a_ person, I said it seems
unlikely they're the _same_ person.

You seem to be trying to ascribe some sort of ill intent or meaning to my
question when there was none.

~~~
guerrilla
No ill intent ascribed. What I mean is that it'd still be an immense suffering
regardless of whether you'd still be you or not.

~~~
grugagag
Yes but if it's not you anymore you can't connect empathically with the future
you who doesn't know who they are anymore. It's a relief in a way but also
scary at the same time.

I've seen a guy in his early 40s afflicted with earl onset dementia and
alzheimer and he was loosing it little by little every day and it was
terrifying. At some point he stopped knowing who he was and he seemed
peaceful. He also could not communicate, care for himself, I don't think he
couldn't even feel pain anymore.

------
sireat
As a counterpoint:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4)
where 97 year old philosopher who held similar logical views as OP has a
change of heart.

Key quote: “In my arrogance, I thought that I could conquer death with logic.
But now I know that I only used logic to suppress my fear of death.”

What is horrifying to me that his was the best case scenario - lucid at 97.

~~~
rudasn
Is it really a best case scenario, lucid at 97?

How bad is it, being non-lucid for the person experiencing it, vs being lucid,
when it's time to face your existence?

------
wnscooke
Fearing death oft-times seems similar to the fear that accompanies any act
which you’ve never done before. About to be married, going to finish school,
going on a trip... fear is part of all of these experiences, at least until
you’ve done it. But I think the fear is made worse because of the stories
we’ve told, and heard, about it. Modern movies are a prime example where we
can watch what might happen if we die and what we might miss, etc. The more
tragic a story the greater the fear that that might overwhelm us. The poems,
tales, and stories highlight the effects of death.

But in a similar vein, I find comfort in the more positive stories too, such
as the ones about Jesus in the Bible. How death came as a result of sin, and
how, for some reason, a sacrifice was required to pay the penalty of sin -
something else had to die in your stead, like a pigeon or sheep. But of
course, how could that really pay that price? No wonder sacrifices were needed
regularly. That is until Jesus’ death - an eternal life could pay for an
eternal death, for good and forever. All I need to do is believe in Jesus and
share that payment. This is a good story, preferable to the ending of say,
300, or Gladiator, for me at least.

I’m not sure the eternal life to come will eventually be boring either. The
story suggests we remain basically the same, and what has been true is that we
grow. True, what interested me as a kid doesn’t hold the same power over me
now, nor could I as a child really get into fonts or NLP or traveling! So I
reckon that eternal life means eternally growing and developing. I can’t
picture it, I’ve not lived it yet, there is some fear there, but overall it
sounds pretty good.

~~~
salemh
As someone who has come back to faith in God, what helped me greatly is
finding the eastern Orthodox Church (which is much different then fire and
damnation of the Baptist sort (not to paint too broad of a brush)). The ethos
is continually following - as much as we can - the teachings of Christ for
reconciliation to God - we judge ourselves, foremost, for Christ did not
condemn us.

This means condemnation of others and their salvation is up to God, and we are
to help others come back to His eternal love.

Many will try everything but the love of Christ (speaking of self again) in
existential dread with psychedelics, the temptations of the world (which never
seem to fill - whether money, material things, power, or partners), self-
actualization, yoga, ego-death as nirvana, gnosticism, energy work - but are
drawn away from a 2,000 year history of the teachings from Christ to Apostle
to the modern Orthodox Church, based on a previous 5,000+ year history of law
which was fulfilled in Christ.

The west (speaking for myself) tends to only be exposed to Protestant and
Roman Catholic doctrine, and offshoots of Protestant such as puritanism,
Jehova's Witness, LDS/Mormons, etc.

Short video on ethos
[https://youtu.be/ySgNWCuxjNQ?t=118](https://youtu.be/ySgNWCuxjNQ?t=118)

This means being humble, no ego of self, thankfulness in all things, charity
and honoring thy neighbor, giving to others selflessly (for life is a give
from God), and noting continually ones shortcoming, and thus not condemning
others their own that we tell ourselves we perceive.

[https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-
faith/spiritualit...](https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-
faith/spirituality/orthodox-spirituality/spirituality) "Every act of a
Christian must be a spiritual act. Every thought must be spiritual, every
word, every deed, every activity of the body, every action of the person. This
means that all that a person thinks, says and does must be inspired and guided
by the Holy Spirit so that the will of God the Father might be accomplished as
revealed and taught by Jesus Christ the Son of God."

------
mekal
I like this way of thinking of it...Mark Twain quote: "I do not fear death. I
had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." Of course you can argue
that it could be different after, but still.

------
UglyToad
I fear death a lot and it sort of ties in to my weird concept of memory.

If we take the idea of consciousness as experienced by the mind as it
functions in the present moment, the past does not exist at all. It has never
existed.

This concept of mind is separate to the biological realities of memories in
the brain, it's the unknown bit that transforms the grey goo into me.

I have been annihilated an infinite amount of times since I started writing
this message. I have only lived because of my memory of the past presents I
experienced.

By which I mean the sensation of being alive and having lived is intimately
tied up with memory. For past events I don't remember I was effectively dead.
I only lived my life because I'm able to live all of it currently.

Rather than life being a column of infinitely small slices of time building up
they're all occurring in the present moment. While I'm lying in bed writing
this I'm also at school, at swim classes, on work experience, at university,
at my first job interview, etc because they are events I know to have happened
and experienced because I don't just replay them, in order for my brain to
have knowledge of them they're happening concurrently. If I don't remember
these did they ever actually happen? From my perspective of the person I
currently consider to be me?

What happens after a catastrophic brain injury or during a disease like
Alzheimers? I don't think this makes any life worth less but from the
perspective of current you it doesn't take the end of life for the death of
your current 'life', the impression of an unbroken chain of having lived that
forms you, in the snapshot of the present. During temporary short term memory
loss do you effectively die?

I know it all sounds very confused but the nature of memory, existence and
death freaks me out.

As a counterpoint during Alzheimers a patient will experience bursts of
lucidity so obviously there's a solid state backup of the past, distinct from
the present, but I get positively vertiginous thinking it over.

------
blooalien
I was always told as a child "Don't waste energy worrying about things you
cannot change when there's so many things in life that energy could be better
invested in." Death is coming, but if I waste energy worrying about it, that's
energy I could have spent on _living_.

------
Rochus
Epicurus is great. He represents a very life-affirming and to modesty
animating philosophy. Unfortunately he was defamed by all the Christian moral
philosophers. This is hinted at in the article.

------
codr7
Having been pretty close to dying several times already; what I do know is
that once you're there, once you realize it's out of your hands, there is no
fear.

The ego is all about self preservation, survival, which is probably a big part
of how we got this far.

------
ivanhoe
For me it all fits in that famous Rutger Hauer's monologue: "All those moments
will be lost in time, like tears in rain" \- still freaks the hell out of me
every time. Not that I think of my experiences as especially important, I mean
I certainly had never seen C-beams glitter in the dark, but still the idea of
all the stories and people I knew in a way dying with me, it just seems like
such a horrible waste...

------
chrisweekly
I appreciate Alan Watts' perspective, loosely summarized as:

eons passed before you were born...

you'll live maybe a handful of decades...

... and eons will pass after you're gone.

Most people aren't freaked out by the "before", so why not take a similar
attitude towards the "after"?

This only relates to existential dread per se (vs eg entirely rational concern
for the well-being of your surviving dependents, for example), but I like it.

~~~
coldtea
> _Most people aren 't freaked out by the "before", so why not take a similar
> attitude towards the "after"?_

Because unlike the before the after means the permanent loss of current,
living experience.

------
toomanyrichies
Something that film critic Roger Ebert wrote a few years before his death has
stuck with me:

"I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing
on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as
possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and
I think of death as the same state."

Assuming that whatever comes after death will be a lot like whatever came
before we were born helped me deal with my own anxiety around the
inevitability of death. If one assumes these two states are equivalent, then
we've already experienced death, or at least a death-like state. Whether
that's something to be feared or not is up to the individual, and is a
separate question.

Source- [https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/go-gentle-into-
that-g...](https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/go-gentle-into-that-good-
night)

------
baron816
The universe existed for 14 billion years before you were born, and it’s
likely going to exist for some way huger number of years after you die. I
expect both experiences (before life and after death) to be the same.

Death does seem scary. But having to live for quintillions of years would
certainly be worse.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Death does seem scary. But having to live for quintillions of years would
> certainly be worse.

You have no evidence from which to argue that as a certainty. Let's gather
such evidence; you could always make a more informed decision at a _much_
later time.

------
mensetmanusman
I’m excited to see if something happens after death, human bodies are just a
cloud of atoms, after all.

~~~
grugagag
Something happens, you cease to exist. You won’t notice anything

~~~
aschismatic
You say that with such confidence, yet at one point you did not exist, and now
you do. Who's to say we won't one day exist again in some form?

~~~
2OEH8eoCRo0
That's what gets me. It's nothing forever? It was nothing forever once but one
day "I" woke up in the universe.

Leads me to another point. What are the odds of waking up? I think it's with
100% certainty that you become conscious.

Your memories are 100% physical though so that definitely evaporates. Perhaps
if you find consciousness again it's as if you awoke from a dream you cannot
remember, a new blank slate. You flash forward to the next time you find
consciousness.

~~~
guerrilla
> What are the odds of waking up? I think it's with 100% certainty that you
> become conscious.

I'm not sure what you mean here, can you explain what you mean by "you"? What
remains to be "you" if your atoms are spread out (happens in life too), your
memories are gone and your consciousness is also temporarily gone? Isn't it
more like just random parts of the universe coming to life and turning into
_someone_? In what way could it be "you"?

~~~
aschismatic
I think if you were to believe in becoming someone or something once again,
then yes, like your memories, your consciousness would be gone. I think this
because I think your consciousness is inherently tied to how you sense the
universe and your own being, and that will obviously be different if you once
again exist as someone or something else.

As a result, if you choose to believe you will one day exist again after you
die, in order to make a connection between one or more consciousnesses or
lives, you would need to invent something to explain it. Like a soul.

You could make thinking about all this even more wild by thinking about how
time is involved in all of this. We are assuming if that you exist again it
must be some time after you cease to exist. What if you exist "again," but at
the same time you exist now? Are you also another person somewhere else? Is
there another universe with another you? When you die do you then relive the
same existence again? The questions are as limitless as our imaginations
because we have no answers.

~~~
guerrilla
I'm not sure the last questions could be answered without determining more
about this new kind of soul, which by the way reminds me of Locke's
substances. A substance for Locke is like an object with no properties
whatsoever, it's that which bears all the properties that we observe but which
maintains its identity through space and time. I guess we'd need something
like that to be 'us' before we're reanimated. The problem though is that none
of that is really observable by 'us' being it or anyone living since it really
has no characteristics. Doesn't mean it's not real, but not that helpful after
all :/

~~~
aschismatic
Thanks for mentioning Locke's substances. It sounds like quite an intriguing
idea. I have not read nearly as much philosophy as I would like, and that
gives me a great indication of where to look when I pursue reading more of it.

~~~
guerrilla
Sure thing, I've just been thinking about object identity recently and they
come up quite often. Tthe article in SEP can help you avoid the arcane English
of his writings btw.

1\.
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/)

------
grishka
I'm looking forward to all that life-extension research that's happening right
now. Reading all those research papers, it feels as if we're on the verge of
being able to actually rejuvenate people for real. We've never came this close
to uncovering the underlying mechanics of aging.

So, anyway, hopefully, in the near future, dying won't be compulsory.

------
javier10e6
Self preservation expressed through fear. Can a movie be enjoyed if told that
the film is broken and will end abruptly? Without resolution? Life takes one
chair away and death stops the music. We all try to find a seat but there not
enough chairs. What a game!

------
benji_is_me
If you're like me and deeply fear death, and you're curious about how others
seemingly ignore the subject entirely, you may be interested in this study
posted on HN a while back.[1][2]

[1]:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10538...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811919306688)

[2]: [https://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811919306688)

------
ineedasername
TLDR: don't fear death because you won't know you're dead.

Pretty much misses the point when the fear of death is frequently not about
what comes after, and much more about the big "nothingness" thing.

~~~
aschismatic
I think that is the whole point. Why fear the big nothingness if it's not
possible to experience it? Just like how it's impossible to experience or
remember anything before you became alive.

I find it comforting to realize that I once wasn't and now I am. I will once
again cease to be. We often think death is final, but if we already made the
transition from not being to being, who's to say that, in some form, we might
once again become something from "nothing."

------
wwarner
I've been reading Seneca's Letters to Lucilious. He says

> For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of
> death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.

I suppose I also meditate on christ's suffering. It seems to say that while
the end is never pretty for the one who is enduring it, it is intrinsically
meaningful and sacred.

------
ikeboy
More to the point - if you accept strong verificationism, statements are only
meaningful to the extent they constrain expectations as to future experiences.
"I will die" does not, because being dead is not an experience. It's a
meaningless statement. It's silly to be afraid of a literally incoherent
"possibility".

~~~
glitcher
> being dead is not an experience

But getting there certainly can be. "I will die" is not the same as "I will be
dead".

~~~
ikeboy
Sure, but the reaction to that should be different - one should focus on
access to painkillers and such rather than some kind of incoherent existential
dread.

------
OneGuy123
99.9999% of people in this thread who say "I fear death" are lying: they are
afraid only in the intellectual sense.

How many of those do actually experience the fear of death so deep in their
bones that they actually live life to their fullest?

(I'm not claiming I'm one of those).

~~~
croissants
Why is failure to "actually live life to their fullest" evidence that such
people don't fear death?

~~~
kgwgk
What does that even mean? Death is the great equalizer anyway.

------
nlh
A collection of philosophical thoughts that I should probably put into an
essay at some point, but in the meantime...

Some have likened the experience of death to what it's like when you black out
(true loss of consciousness) or, to a lesser extent, when you go to sleep at
night. One moment you're there, the next moment you're coming back from not
being there. (Give me some leeway on the sleep thing - I know that when you're
actively dreaming or tossing and turning it's not quite a jump cut).

So in that moment when you're coming back to consciousness from a state of
previous unconsciousness, what's to say you're the same "you" that was
beforehand? Sure, you remember a whole life, but then there's this gap in
continuity. Maybe you were someone else and then all of a sudden, you're now
"you" with all those memories in that mushy brain of yours.

But if that's the case, why is the gap of consciousness needed to separate
"you"? What's to say that from any given instant to any other given instant
the "you" is continuous, other than for this stream of memories coming from
your meat brain. Maybe "you" jumps around all the time.

But then - what is "you" anyway? If we're just a collection of meat brain
memories, maybe there's no core identifying "you" in the first place, and
we're all just part of a big collective pool? Like a piece of code running in
an overall shared memory space. The complexity forms (your program / you), and
then the function exits and the memory goes back to the collective pool.

So then - what if life and existence is all about perspective? I'm me because,
well, I'm me. I expeierience this life and remember these memories. And you're
you because you experience your life and remember your memories. Is there
really a difference from a third-party observer?

Maybe life is simply in the eye of the beholder. As long as there is ANY
conscious life, then life is being experienced. And so maybe death really is
nothing to worry about -- you'll get a chance to experience another life as
someone else.

But then - why does it even need to be linear? Maybe we ARE experiencing life
as someone else -- as evidenced by all the someone elses experiencing life
right now :). Just because we can't experience it (hardware limitations -
sorry. Brain can't handle multiple sets of inputs ;) doesn't mean it's not
happening.

Maybe we're all experiencing consciousness in our own ways as part of one big
system. That leopard in the zoo is experiencing it. I'm experiencing it. You
reading this are experiencing it. Maybe our meat brains and linear single-
track memories are just a nice little lie, and we're really just all temporary
functions running as part of a bigger computing system. Function runs, exits,
memory goes back to the shared pool. New function runs, exits, memory goes
back to the shared pool. Many functions run simultaneously - each doing only
what it was programmed to do, then each exits and the memory gets released
again....

This really gets wild when you start thinking about clone experiments (or
teleportation). Make a perfect clone of yourself right now, down to the
neuron, and assemble it in across the room. You'll experience nothing other
than to see a clone appear 10 feet away from you. Your clone will have the
experience of being you one instant, and then waking up across the room
looking at you "Holy cow! Cloning and teleportation worked! They're real!"
Then your clone will go on with life, doing the same things you want to do,
remembering the same things you remember.

Then think about whether there's REALLY any difference between that clone of
you and any other person on earth....

~~~
aschismatic
I've had a lot of thoughts similar to yours. I especially wonder about the
linear qualities we often attribute to life and death, and potentially
rebirth. We often assume that if we are somehow reborn, it will be in the
future. But what if I am reborn while I still exist, just somewhere else?
After all, time is simply another dimension, right? At least, as we humans
understand it.

Your comparison to computing, functions, and shared memory is very good at
describing that. But to go even further, since computers as we know them still
run in a linear fashion with regards to time (forward), what if all
consciousness across all time and space is just one "thing?"

~~~
nlh
I love this. And it adds a whole new dimension (ha ha) to the thinking.

And you're right - it starts to get really wild when you remove the linear
constraint. Or even the singular universe constraint. Think about a
multiverse, where not only are there other people in this one timeline
experiencing things, maybe there are multiple (infinite) simultaneous
timelines. Or, as you said, not even timelines. Multiple infinite states of
being.

I think perhaps the most comforting part of trying to "figure it all out" is
the realization that we're, in all likelihood, woefully incapable of really
ever figuring it all out, especially if "reality" (whatever that is) looks
nothing like the tiny, single-brained, single-universed, linear timeline
perspective that we have.

~~~
aschismatic
Woefully incapable indeed. But at the same time, the inability to know or
understand the entire nature of our universe creates an eternal, enchanting
mystery, and drives our search for meaning in life. I find it romantic.

------
peter303
In an infinite universe you will repeat exactly an infinite number of times.
You will repeat with any possible variation even more times. -From physicist
Brian Greenes multiverse book.

------
throwaway713
In articles like this, everyone crawls out of the woodwork to brag about how
they don’t fear death. I don’t believe it for a minute. The number of people
who could have a loaded gun staring them in the face and truly not feel the
slightest bit of fear has to be minuscule. Humans just wouldn’t have made it
this far otherwise.

What I think is scarier than the concept of non-existence though is the
possibility that our universe might be cyclical; i.e., that its evolution
would repeat over and over again an infinite number of times. Imagine all of
the suffering that you’ve ever experienced happening again, indefinitely. Or
the Holocaust repeating. Or slavery. Just thinking about the idea of an
endless, cyclical universe is almost sickening. I much prefer the other
theories of how the universe might end.

~~~
oh_sigh
Death is really the only thing I fear. I can't imagine not fearing it. I also
don't understand people who say things like "I wouldn't want to live to <500,
1000, some big number>

------
nurettin
Death is indeed nothing and is nothing to fear. The dread of having minutes,
or seconds left to die in suffering on the other hand, is not very pleasant.

------
jointpdf
I’m just gonna leave these here and see if anyone has relevant experiences to
share:

> _”There is something about the core of this experience that opens people up
> to the great mystery of what it is that we don’t know.”_

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psilocybin-a-
jour...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psilocybin-a-journey-
beyond-the-fear-of-death/)

> _”Of the participants who received the high dose in the second study, 83%
> reported feeling significantly less depression and 58% reported less anxiety
> after 7 weeks. Only 14% of those who received niacin reported less anxiety
> and less depression.”_

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/hallucinogenic-
drugs...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/hallucinogenic-drugs-help-
cancer-patients-deal-their-fear-death)

------
svieira
> Not death itself, but only the moral preparation for it holds terrors ~
> Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

------
winrid
A perspective: You don't want to be old and regret wasting time worrying about
death.

------
1nikoalvin1
Im not scared of death per se. but this is still a unique perspective

------
czep
I'm not afraid of death because I'm a solipsist. But you should be afraid of
my death, because when I die all of you will disappear!

That joke and singing along to Monty Python's Bright Side of Life is usually
enough to snap me out of the occasional melancholy resulting from
contemplating the inevitable.

Ok, but seriously, yeah, I'm terrified.

------
sunstone
Why not just live in denial like the rest of us?

------
staticassertion
I wish people were more afraid of death. Maybe we'd be doing more about it.
Why are we trying so much harder to overcome the fear of death and not death?

> No doubt you don’t fear your prenatal existence and logically speaking,
> given their equivalence, it follows that you should fear death the exact
> same amount, as in not at all.

Prenatal existence is not symmetrical to death, in my opinion. First off, even
if they were, neither can be conceived, which makes the symmetry unknowable.
But more importantly I don't fear things that have happened, I fear things
that are impending - a pretty key distinction here, which I feel fundamentally
breaks the symmetry (ie: time is not symmetrical).

> doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that one can reasonably be fearful of
> because it isn’t anything.

Earlier it was described as the greatest deprivation. Of course that's
something. This is like saying "why fear starvation? It is only the absence of
something - food". It is the absence, the nothingness, that drives that very
fear.

This is like saying "Why fear loneliness? It is not something that is done to
you, it is only the absence of love".

Perhaps death is 'nothing', whatever that means. Why is 'nothing' a special
'thing' that I can not fear? It seems just as reasonable to fear 'nothing' as
anything else.

IDK, I don't find any of it compelling. Fix death please, that's a good way to
prevent the fear.

~~~
rcpt
me: "ug, I think I got the group permissions right but not sure why that user
still can't read it. So irritating. I'll sort it out but, ug, maybe it's not
so bad to procrastinate a bit on hackernews. "

hackernews: "here's some more reasons to fear death"

me: man chgrp

~~~
kyuudou
Bounce the login session first or test after "bash --login"

------
troughway
This should be required reading for doomers.

~~~
chmod775
Yeah let's take away depressed people's fear of death, that ought to end well!

