God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I｀ve made," said God. "The hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going God!
Nobody but you could have doen it God! I certainly couldn｀t have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn｀t even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw.
- From Cat｀s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut-302쪽
So it｀s not just the fact that we｀re mortal that requires us to be careful, nor the fact that we live for only a short period of time, measured in some absolute way. Rather, it｀s the fact that we have a short span of life relative to how _much_ there is worth aiming for, and how complicated and _difficult_ it can be to achieve those things. It｀s because of the fact that there｀s so much to do and it｀s so hard to do it properly that we have to be careful. We just don｀t have the time to flail around and try a little of this, a little of that.-305쪽
And there are, of course, many other kinds of lasting accomplishments... Or, for that matter, you might take pleasure and comfort in the accomplishment of having raised a family. Here, the idea is not so much that some of your cells are in your offspring, but rather that to have raised another decent human being is a nontrivial accomplishment, something worth having done with your life. And that accomplishment continues after you｀re gone.-315쪽
And indeed, Buddhists try to free you from what they take to be the illusion of there being a self at all. There is no _me_ to lose anything.
Death is terrifying insofar as I worry about it being the dissolution of myself. But if there is no self, there is nothing to dissolve.-317쪽
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