WISDOM SNIPPET #4
"Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs." — Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Gutter Philosophy
I think you have to bleed your heart out on the battlefield at Austerlitz, with a blurry vision of Napoleon riding past you in a victorious, heroic pose atop a triumphant grinning horse, to come up with a sentence like that.
The fear of death is what separates humans from machines. It's also what drives them to believe in insane stuff. Those who overcome the fear of death are likely to become sociopaths or suicidal — or are very old or very sick. Those who can channel and acknowledge their fear of death, their belongings are cherished. Or they want to overcome mortality by amassing goods and shopping sprees. Or they want to possess the greatest vinyl collection before they bite the dust.
They say we can't take anything with us when we die, and that might be right. And then they find another Viking Jarl's grave and it becomes a national treasure. Horse, ship, jewellery — all buried with them and undying for all time.
But those who aren't afraid to die, beware. Those who always have their cyanide pills at hand, because evading the consequences of their deeds is baked into the plan. For these people, possessing things isn't the kicker. Possessing people, souls, minds — that's what they're after. They need to brutalize, vulgarize, marginalize and dominate everything and everybody around them.
Hitler and his cronies died poor, soulless, hunched down in a bleak bunker system, shit and piss in their pants. Just as they deserved. Everybody was happy that they were dead. These people must die like worms — they can't be trialed, they can't be captured without being lynched. They breathe away the air of the atmosphere. They poison everything with the stench of death they emanate.
"But to him who does not fear it..." — to him who uses his own demise as part of his terror plan — every resentment belongs.
This way the quote makes more sense to me.
