/lit/ - Literature

>>19233869
>>19233881
>>19233952
Valuable insight here. I agree the book is misunderstood. You guys seem to understand it the way I do.

I also thought placing death anxiety as the absolute source of all human activity was stretching the concept too thin. I'm not sure how else it could be structured but I don't think that's quite right.

Responding to avoid anxiety is a reactive and negative action pattern. I'd like to think that we're capable of proactive, positive action. If there were a second, positive core of behavior I think it would be the "divine spark" or "inner god" that elevates us to a status of lesser diety, as he mentions in the beginning of the book.

If death-terror is not the end of the story, I think the next best idea is that we have both visceral terror and abstract joy to express through our behavior.

That could also be cope though...