Morning Thought

"

There is a very popular opinion that choosing life is
inherently superior to choosing death. This belief that life is
inherently preferable to death is one of the most widespread
superstitions. This bias constitutes one of the most obstinate
mythologies of the human species.
This prejudice against death, however, is a kind of
xenophobia. Discrimination against death is simply assumed
good and right. Absolutist faith in life is commonly a result
of the unthinking conviction that existence or survival, along
with an irrational fear of death, is “good”. This unreasoned
conviction in the rightness of life over death is like a god or a
mass delusion. Life is the “noble lie”; the common secularreligion of the West.
For the conventional Westerner, the obvious leap of faith
to make here is that one’s “self” and its preservation
constitute the first measure of rationality. Yet if one begins
reasoning with the unquestioned premise that life is good, or
that one’s own life or any life is justified, this is very
different from bringing that premise itself to be questioned
rationally. Anyone who has ever contemplated his or her
own mortality might question the ultimate sanity of the
premise of self-preservation. Even if it is possible to live
forever, moreover, this makes not an iota of difference as to
the question of the value of existence."

---- Mitchell Heisman