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>>Death is monstrous. I'll be a contrarian and post this: >>No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet

>>Death is monstrous. I'll be a contrarian and post this: >>No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life<< Steve Jobs

jacobush 6y ago
Also put much longer in the form of the Tolkien books. Elves have non-bound lives but Men got the gift of a bounded lifespan by the creater. The Elves think that is a strange gift, but some come to realise just that, we have a chance to live not someone elses, but our own lives, made precious by its scarcity.
mrfredward 6y ago
>>It clears out the old to make way for the new. Just imagine working for a boss who had been climbing the company ladder 200 years. Or trying to buy a house in a market where people had been accumulating capital for centuries. And lest we think it's just the the economic system, look at the average age of politicians. Or science, the researchers who hold the most prestige are likely past the point of embracing new ideas. Any advantage which can be accumulated over time would be held almost exclusively by the oldest, and the world would stagnate. Death is the natural law which requires every generation to pass the torch. Without it, there'd be no life for the young.
- sitkack 6y ago
  Same thing can be said for money, that money spent moving from the baker to the record store operator in days, is people money. Money sitting in vault is rotting food and weekends not going to a rock show. Inflation is a way to decay the power of money and make way for the new.

jacobush 6y ago

Also put much longer in the form of the Tolkien books. Elves have non-bound lives but Men got the gift of a bounded lifespan by the creater. The Elves think that is a strange gift, but some come to realise just that, we have a chance to live not someone elses, but our own lives, made precious by its scarcity.

mrfredward 6y ago

>>It clears out the old to make way for the new. Just imagine working for a boss who had been climbing the company ladder 200 years. Or trying to buy a house in a market where people had been accumulating capital for centuries. And lest we think it's just the the economic system, look at the average age of politicians. Or science, the researchers who hold the most prestige are likely past the point of embracing new ideas. Any advantage which can be accumulated over time would be held almost exclusively by the oldest, and the world would stagnate. Death is the natural law which requires every generation to pass the torch. Without it, there'd be no life for the young.

sitkack 6y ago
Same thing can be said for money, that money spent moving from the baker to the record store operator in days, is people money. Money sitting in vault is rotting food and weekends not going to a rock show. Inflation is a way to decay the power of money and make way for the new.