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Fear Of Death In Epicurus's Letter To Menoeceus

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Everyone has to face death. There are some people who fear death because it will take them away from their loved ones and rip them off what they have earned throughout their life, such as money, honor, and power. However, there are people claiming that they do not fear death since they have experienced many wonderful moments in their lifetime. Death sounds so terrifying because it means an end of someone’s life. Reading Epicurus’ “Letter to Menoeceus”, I will argue that a reason to not fear death is that we do not exist anymore after we die. When we are dead, we will not exist or experience anything. Death is the destination of our life journey on this planet. When we are dead, we are no longer physically present on this planet. To us, everything is over. According to Epicurus, “So death, the most terrifying of evils, is nothing to us, because as long as we exist death is not present, whereas when death is present we do not exist. It is nothing to those who live (since to them it does not exist) and it is nothing to those who have died (since they no longer exist)” …show more content…

However, it is our fear of death that give rises to such kind of pain. According to Epicurus, “For something that causes no trouble when present causes only a groundless pain when merely expected” (Epicurus Paragraph 5). We should realize that death does not bring any pain when it is present. It just puts an end of our life and it comes by nature. The so-called pain comes from the fear of death. This fear throws plenty of pressure and burden to people and therefore makes people mentally depressed. Such mental breakdown further influences people negatively in a physical way. Their physical health will go down day by day. And this is why some people say that we should fear death. They never realize that the all the pain comes from the fear of death. When we cease to fear death, we cease to experience

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