Writing on the Subject of:

Lip service to mortality. Denial of death:

Therefore in normal times we move about actually without ever believing in our own death, as if we fully believed in our own corporeal immortality. We are intent on mastering death. . . . A man will say, of course, that he knows he will die some day, but he does not really care. He is having a good time with living, and he does not think about death and does not care to bother about it - but this is a purely intellectual, verbal admission. The affect of fear is repressed. When we deal with our fears, all this changes. We begin to prioritize and balance long term goals against immediate gratification. The priorities we establish help us use time to nourish us rather than to merely pass the time.