Didn't expect to learn about Sahlins posthumous book via HN's front page. Stone-Age Economics and The Original Affluent Society (the title a pun on a book well-known by 1960s intelligentsia, Galbraith's "The Affluent Society") were interesting reads.
The definition of transcendence in operation here seems to be informed by death, where a being leaves something behind and becomes something else. There is another definition of transcendence which is not informed by death but by eternity, where a being expands their sense of self while preserving what was pre-existent.
