La Rochefoucauld on death

Yes, he isn't always easy to read because the English is kind of strange. Archaic? Also, it's the translation from French so... maybe the translator is to blame, too

I better add some amphasyses and line breaks to make it easier to read at least visually))

You mean contradictions in treating death?

I think he's quite right in arguing "the contempt the peer shows for death is but the love of fame which hides death from his sight; in the peasant it is but the result of his limited vision that hides from him the extent of the evil".

Here's a giid illustration for your comment:

I also think when we treat death as something abstract,--  without vividly imagining how it would feel to know that this is it, now are the last moments and there's nothing you can do to change that, -- we tend to think it's fine, whatever. Sort of like a lot of people overestimate their courage when thinking they could easily jump with a parachute, they truly believe it would be easy. Up until they're standing on the edge of a plane looking down and their legs suddenly start shaking.

Death is a problem because we're wired to dread it. If you think about it, all the harms death brings happen while we're alive, death as non-existence poses no problem because there's nobody there to feel anything as a problem. Just like we haven't been suffering in nothingness for billions of years before we popped in here and becane conscious, so we'll not be inconvenienced after we seize to exist. It's this existence that is the problem. The fact that we can't easily accept that it will be terminated. The anxiety, the helplessness, the dread - all the 'presents' the limited life of ours brings with itself. 

But for me, of course, it isn't the only problem with life, it's virtually everything else that's the problem, so I wouldnt want to be trapped here for ever even if I'm physically well. What about animals eating each other every second? Just keep blocking it out for eternity? Why would I want to do that? I only have to last a few decades in this nightmarish world, no way I would want to stay any longer.

Just notice how you're thinking eternal life only in opposition to the prospect of having to die. Would you want this life on its own, for the quality it has, for somethig valuable and worth experincing forever were there no fear of death? What would you be doing? If there were no suffering, nothing to fix, nobody to help, what would be your plan for the first half of eternity? People get bored having too much free time very easily, they can't figure out what to entertain themselves with.

Here's my translation of the piece from  this great book by Artsybashev called 'Breaking Point'. It deals primarily with dying, telling stories about one doctor's patients, their lifes and their last days. This passage is the thoughts of an old professor on his death bed:

"Why have You given me life? So it was all just a trap?.. The youth, the starry nights, the hopes, the love, the science... all this just a bait in order to allure, to entice and then to squish with inescapable and torturous death!.. But I don't want this! Who has the right to abuse me like this? Damn You with all your universe, stars, eternity and suns! You're nothing but a petty, mean trash who takes pleasure in tormenting and abusing the weak, defenceless people, who can do nothing to You!.. And I hate and curse You! Was this what you wanted when You were sweating over Your universe?.. So take it, enjoy!"

There is an English translation online, but at least this free one is rather poor, lots of very important emotional nuances omitted. So I'd check out what Amazon has to offer, maybe a better translation.

It's hard to imagine sufferingless world and our living in such. We are problem-solvers, we need a sense of purpose, of mission. Fighting 'evil', 'making a world a better place', as in finding cures for debilitating diseases, inventing stuff that makes human life more comfortable - this gives meaning to a lot of peoples lives. Others find meaning in raising children - which to a large degree is a craving for immortality. What would people do if tomorrow they could just sit around and remain alive effortlessly forever? With our current psychology it's hard to picture a human being being happy forever doing nothing of value, in a world that doesn't need much improvement. Sure, I suppose, creativity could still exist: I'd stil be making jewellery and souvenirs, somebody would paint, others - write music. But that's some people, not everybody is creative. Would other immortal folks just sit around watch TV? Run around laughing and dancing? What? I don't know. What would that eternity look like? If the world was drastically different - we'd also have to be drastically different. And imagining a different human using our current psychological makeup is, again, not so easy, we can only speculate what that would be like.

As Kirk replied to you below, the problem starts with birth. No point thinking how to fix death, if we weren't 'awaken' in the first place we'd never have to deal with death. It's part of the package of life, of all sentient life on Earth. To me it's like asking how to prevent a heroine addiction from ending badly for the addict. Don't start it, this is how it always ends, there's no fixing it.

Let's all not have kids, travel and party and sit at home in silence and peacefully make jewelry and other art. Yeah. Not forever. For a while though.

How about wire trees? Home decor stuff. Made my 2nd one, getting the hang of it.

Having to find ways to pass the time, if one is not exhausted from working to meet temporary needs, like food, shelter, etc. is a form of suffering many people don't even think about. 

I seriously don't know how people manage to live like that, it's a form pf suffering in itself for me - not having enough time for pleasurable activities. Me - I try to make my pleasures my source of income. Website making first started as a hobby, then it turned into my main job. Now I'm trying to turn my craftsy hobbies into at least a supplementary income, but I'll be happy even if it just pays out occasionally.

No cheating, that's just boring!

LOL. I think it's quite evident that barbers usually don't make their own haircuts, so you'd go the the one with a worse one. But actually, if one of the barbers is a sly bastard, he, knowing that logic, would actually spoil his own haircut to make the other guy look worse! haha.