Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F__k (2016, HarperOne) - libgen.li

This realization causes what Becker calls “death terror,” a deep
existential anxiety that underlies everything we think or do.
2. Becker’s second point starts with the premise that we essentially have
two “selves.” The first self is the physical self—the one that eats, sleeps,
snores, and poops. The second self is our conceptual self—our identity,
or how we see ourselves.
Becker’s argument is this: We are all aware on some level that our
physical self will eventually die, that this death is inevitable, and that its
inevitability—on some unconscious level—scares the shit out of us.
Therefore, in order to compensate for our fear of the inevitable loss of
our physical self, we try to construct a conceptual self that will live
forever. This is why people try so hard to put their names on buildings,
on statues, on spines of books. It’s why we feel compelled to spend so
much time giving ourselves to others, especially to children, in the hopes
that our influence—our conceptual self—will last way beyond our
physical self. That we will be remembered and revered and idolized long
after our physical self ceases to exist.
Becker called such efforts our “immortality projects,” projects that
allow our conceptual self to live on way past the point of our physical
death. All of human civilization, he says, is basically a result of
immortality projects: the cities and governments and structures and
authorities in place today were all immortality projects of men and
women who came before us. They are the remnants of conceptual selves
that ceased to die. Names like Jesus, Muhammad, Napoleon, and
Shakespeare are just as powerful today as when those men lived, if not
more so. And that’s the whole point. Whether it be through mastering an
art form, conquering a new land, gaining great riches, or simply having a
large and loving family that will live on for generations, all the meaning
in our life is shaped by this innate desire to never truly die.
Religion, politics, sports, art, and technological innovation are the result
of people’s immortality projects. Becker argues that wars and revolutions
and mass murder occur when one group of people’s immortality projects rub
up against another group’s. Centuries of oppression and the bloodshed of
millions have been justified as the defense of one group’s immortality project
against another’s.