Annals Of Dime-Store Psychology

We typed "scaredy-pants crowd" just below, & were then reminded of how the weak & cowardly who surrender to the authoritarian impulse do it across the spectrum, from beauty contests to religion, when we made the mistake of reading some of Andrew Sullivan's aggregation. That lead to this, as quoted by Sullivan:

But this attitude toward death surely sums up a vast chasm between the religious and the nonreligious. "Facing it is our life's task"? I can't even conceive of that. I think about death sometimes, just like everyone, and sometimes these thoughts bother me more than other times. But thinking about it all the time? Casting it as uniquely central to the human condition? That's almost incomprehensible to me. Wondering about our own finitude is one thing — I imagine we all do that from time to time — but why should this be elevated above the human ability to create art, science, mathematics, love, war, poetry, trade, government, or ethics — or the ability to wonder in the first place? Why is learning how to deal with our eventual death the defining characteristic of being human? Not just because Montaigne said so, certainly.

There's no answer, of course. Andrew thinks it is and I don't. But I confess that even on an intellectual basis I have a hard time grasping this.

No intellectual basis needed. Popular music holds the answer: "Tired of living, scared of dying." Scared of almost everything else, as well, & to continue w/ the lyrical approach, convinced that they are here to live in pain & fear.And that they should make their own lives living hells because, we guess, Montaigne or the Pope said so.