ExerciseAttested · Lucretius
The symmetry of non-being
In book III of , offers a simple argument against the fear of being dead: set the eternity that will follow your death beside the infinite eternity that preceded your birth. That earlier non-being never troubled you; why dread the later one, which resembles it in every way? Where death is, you are no longer, and a subject who is no more can suffer no harm. The exercise does not console grief or erase the worth of living: it targets one precise fear, the fear of being dead, and returns it to , peace of mind.
Put this practice to work
The step-by-step routine, with its variants for your position, comes with a Premium account: every practice, for life.
Discover the Premium accountEnacts
- Death · Freeing ourselves from the fear
Source: Lucretius
Appears in
- Taming the fear — The sages proposed exercises for living without being haunted by it, dwelling on it daily or not at all: can philosophy truly cure us of this fear, or does it cling to us too hard to yield?