In the end, fear of death is a matter of identification. Identify with the ego, and you're afraid of death. Identify with the Self or Soul, and fear's not an issue. You know you're just going home.

It's wonderful to read this piece while making my way through Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish novels. In those stories, the staggering distance between galaxies is covered in a few hours through light-speed traveling ships. But those hours translate to years for characters standing still on a single planet, while the ship's crew remains young.

As usual, you raise many issues worth pondering well after the reading. Thanks for writing this.