[papeda]

> This omnipresent cult of the body is extraordinary. It is the only object on which everyone is made to concentrate, not as a source of pleasure, but as an object of frantic concern, in the obsessive fear of failure or substandard performance, a sign and an anticipation of death, that death to which no one can any longer give a meaning, but which everyone knows has at all times to be prevented.

It's a huge rhetorical jump to go from "people engaging in focused activity" to "ritualistic pre-enactment of inevitable death", and even after re-reading this quote several times, I'm confused by how that jump is supposed to make sense?

[Barrin92]

is it really such a jump with a reference like this in the original post?

"And it's almost effortless now. Like, wtf. Have I too become one of those insane Patrick Bateman-like beings that I thought all productive people were a few months ago? How did I finally pull it together? Here's the deal."

It may be a tongue in cheek reference but the comparison to Bateman is apt. He is actually the logical endpoint of this sort of life optimization, surface without anything beneath it and symbolic death. I'm not so sure how large the number of people is who unironically thing Bateman is a rolemodel rather than a parody and symbol of the sort of yuppie culture on display here.

[pradn]

He's a philosopher. He's looking at the metaphorical nuances of what he observes. It's meant to be a point of analysis, not a literal truth.