| What is "overanalysis" in this piece? It seemed a fairly straightforward if slightly controversial position to me. I'm not even a philosophy major. And as someone who has been near death before I tend to agree with what the author claims. When I thought I was dying I had regrets that in my late twenties I didn't have a family and kids. Luckily I recovered and have been healthy for 4-5 years since. I'm still not married and don't have kids. Why did I think it was so important when I thought I was dying? Hard to say but I think because I was terrified of dying, the unknown, and wanted some piece of me to live on into the future. Now that I'm not in that position I realize that I actually don't want kids at least at this point in my life. And me having kids or not isn't going to change the fact that after I die, hopefully many years from now, I will be completely forgotten in 100 years, probably less. Maybe an old photograph on my grandkids wall. That's true of 99.9% of us. Your "deathbed perspective" is important but the hackneyed old idea that it's THE true insight into what's important in life is oversold, IMO. When you think you're dying it terrifies you, I don't care who you are, I've seen enough people go through it that the "I'm not afraid of death" braggadocio is horseshit in almost every case. Your views on life when you're terrified of the unknown are important, sure, but not THE most important, or best insight into what life is. |