There's a psychological mechanism, I've come to believe, that prevents most of us from imagining the moment of our own death. For if it were possible to imagine fully that instant of passing from consciousness to nonexistence, with all the attendant fear and humiliation of absolute helplessness, it would be very hard to live. It would be unbearably obvious that death is inscribed in everything that constitutes life, that any moment of your existence may be only a breath away from being the last. We would be continuously devastated by the magnitude of that inescapable fact. Still, as we mature into our mortality, we begin to gingerly dip our horror-tingling toes into the void, hoping that our mind will somehow ease itself into dying, that God or some other soothing opiate will remain available as we venture into the darkness of non-being. Aleksandar Hemon
About This Quote

The psychological mechanism that prevents most of us from imagining the moment of our own death is called denial. When we were young, we never imagined that we would die. As we got older and our bodies developed, we developed a sense of invincibility that would normally only come with adulthood. However, as we grew older and realized that we were mortal, the very thing that made us so strong was also the thing that kept us from dying.

However, as people grow older their denial lessens. People think they are immortal as long as they are healthy and alive. In reality, they are not immortal as long as they are healthy and alive.

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