Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2022
There is nothing new under the sun, and so much of what this book contains is nothing new, only perhaps a somewhat different and more systematic way of thinking about what is already known. It’s impossible to develop any collective majoritarian default method for how best to deal with death on an individual level. Thinking carefully about how we live – in preparation for how we will die – is an ongoing and iterative process, an opportunity to be seized rather than postponed. Of course, no one of healthy mind actually wants to die, and it is normal and necessary to avoid dwelling continuously on mortality, but persistent denial of the undeniable fact of mortality harms more than it helps. Pausing from time to time to contemplate death may not make its impending arrival any more welcome but, like developing calluses from hard manual labor, it can toughen up the emotions a bit. Without occasional labor of this sort, the result is not calluses but painful blisters.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.