Death

Epicurus had a famous line about death: “Death is nothing to us.” He didn’t mean we should be careless or suicidal. He meant death itself — the state of being dead — can’t harm you. His reasoning was simple. All good and bad is sensation. Pleasure feels good. Pain feels bad. But sensation requires a functioning body and mind. When you’re dead, you have no body or mind. No sensation. No experience....

Ask someone if they want to live longer and they’ll say yes. Ask if they want to live forever and watch their face change. Something about infinity breaks our intuition. We can imagine being 90, maybe 120. But 1,000 years? A million? The mind rejects it. I think the terror comes from boredom. Not the kind you feel on a slow Tuesday. The kind that comes after you’ve done everything....