illusion of immortality..., a human strategy, aphorism 500

500 

If the prospect of everlasting life exalts this mortal life by existing as a rung on the ladder, and that we might climb all the higher only when we leave that rung behind, then nothing is left out and this overcoming of self-deceit finds its place within the human equation: the opportunity to sacrifice the illusion of immortality strengthens us and increases that pressure which is contained within the admission of mortality, which must go somewhere: let it rise up with our discipline ... from which a severe honesty looks down on the fate its height depends upon and which it cannot, nor would not, alter. 

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