Well then what about the death of others? Is it equally silly to fear the death of people you love? Probably so, say some philosophers, because what you're fearing isn't actually death what you’re afraid of is being left behind, alone, when a loved one dies. And this is a good place to hear from ancient Chinese Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi. He lived about the same time as Epicurus, he believes that there’s no reason to fear the death of your loved ones.
He asked why would you fear the inevitable? We know that death is going to happen, to everyone, and we also know that it's a part of the life cycle. And we don't see any other part of that cycle as being bad. Wouldn't it be silly, he said, if we mourned the loss of our babies when they became toddlers, or our children when they became teens?
We celebrate every other life milestone, with birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, and graduations, to mark the passage of time and the changes that have come. Sure, your parents might shed some tears when they pack you off to college, but they also knew that that day was going to come when you would move away from them and onto your own life.
So, death, according to wang Zhuangzi, is just one more change, why treat it differently? Instead, he said, you should celebrate the death of a loved one just as you celebrated every other life change that they experience. You should think of their death as a going away party for a grand journey. In his view, mourning can actually seem selfish.
When it's time for the people you love to move on, Zhuangzi said, the last thing you should do is hold them closer.
Today we talk about death. We considered philosophical responses from Socrates, Epicurus and Zhuang Zi, about whether it’s logical to fear your own death, or the deaths of your loved ones. And we talked about Thomas Nagel death and fear of Missing Out.
for:阅读练习生
乙亥年七月十四
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