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Chapter 1 THE MORTAL WOUND - Sorrow enters my heart. I am afraid of death. Gilgamesh Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die. Mortality has haunted us from the beginning of history. Four thousand years ago, the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh reflected on the death of his friend Enkidu with the words from the epigraph above: “Thou hast become dark and cannot hear me. When I die shall I not be like Enkidu? Sorrow enters my heart. I am afraid of death.” Gilgamesh speaks for all of us. As he feared death, so do we all—each and every man, woman, and child. For some of us the fear of death manifests only 1
2 staring at the sun indirectly, either as generalized unrest or masqueraded as another psychological symptom; other individuals experience an explicit and conscious stream of anxiety about death; and for some of us the fear of death erupts into terror that negates all happiness and fulfillment. For eons, thoughtful philosophers have attempted to dress the wound of mortality and to help us fashion lives of harmony and peace. As a psychotherapist treating many individuals struggling with death anxiety, I have found that ancient wisdom, particularly that of the ancient Greek philosophers, is thoroughly relevant today. Indeed, in my work as a therapist, I take as my intellectual ancestors not so much the great psychiatrists and psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—Pinel, Freud, Jung, Pavlov, Rorschach, and Skinner—but classical Greek philosophers, particularly Epicurus. The more I learn about this extraordinary Athenian thinker, the more strongly I recognize Epicurus as the proto-existential psychotherapist, and I will make use of his ideas throughout this work. He was born in the year 341 B.C.E., shortly after the death of Plato, and died in 270 B.C.E. Most people today are familiar with his name through the word epicure or epicurean, to signify a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink). But in historical reality, Epicurus did not advocate sensuous pleasure; he was far more concerned with the attainment of tranquility (ataraxia).
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Page 5 and 6: Copyright © 2008 by Irvin D. Yalom
Page 8 and 9: Preface and Acknowledgments - This
Page 10 and 11: Dedicated to my mentors who ripple
Page 14 and 15: The Mortal Wound 3 Epicurus practic
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Chapter 4 THE POWER OF IDEAS - Idea
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The Power of Ideas 79 How did Epicu
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The Power of Ideas 83 RIPPLING - Of
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The Power of Ideas 105 The concept
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The Power of Ideas 111 Ernest Becke
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Chapter 5 OVERCOMING DEATH TERROR T
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Overcoming Death Terror Through Con
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Notes - Chapter One: The Mortal Wou
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Notes 281 the German existential an
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Notes 287 252 Having recently read
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A Reader’s guide to Staring at th
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300 index Bosch, Hieronymous, 80 Br
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