/lit/ - Literature

Why is our world so afraid of death?

People like to pretend it doesn't happen. If they talk about it, it's to make a mockery of it with action movies or in abstract terms like when a stranger dies and it's news. Video games, movies, music, films, tv, books...it's all just to distract you from the fact one day you will die. Walk to your nearest graveyard and look at it, YOU will be in the ground one day, YOU will die. It could happen today. It could happen next week. It could happen 50 years from now as you're walking to get bread and a car overturns and crushes you to death through freak luck. Hunter gatherers would brush with death often. Wild animals, poisonous plants, harsh weather. But ironically the further we got from real danger the more we lacked appreciation for what we escaped. The only definitive thing you can say about life is that everybody dies. People go through their lives like it'll never happen, they make 5 year plans, get 25 year mortgages, they live like they'll live forever.

It's a sad state of affairs, we like to fashion ourselves as conquering imperialists who'll venture into space and spread peace and prosperity to all. But in reality we're the fat people on the ship in Wall-E.

Name something more detrimental to a human being and humanity in general than comfort.