Dr. James Hollis

I would say to you at this moment, and I'm trying to be as honest as I can about it, the chief thing I worry about as I approach my mortality,

is I don't want my wife to be alone.

I care for her, and I know there are areas where she needs my help.

And I want to be here for her as long as I can.

And my existence a little over a year ago was sort of problematic coming out of all those surgeries.

So that's one reason we moved to a retirement community, so there'd be some structure there for her.

Secondly, I don't want to suffer, obviously, but that's outside of my control.

And thirdly, I'm still curious as a human being.

There's so much to learn.

And when we're talking about the Internet and its perils, it's also an enormous learning tool.

I love to Google up things and find out about things that used to be so difficult to learn about.

So I'm still heavily invested in the adventure of life, but I'm less and less attached to it in some peculiar way.

It's the ego attachment, you know.

The German word Gelassenheit is the word for serenity.

It's the condition of having let go.

And the only solution, so to speak, for our fear of mortality is accepting it paradoxically.

of letting go of the fantasy of the sovereignty of the ego, that it's immune somehow to the natural order of things, the natural progression of things.

Now, I'm not saying that makes me wholly unafraid of death.

That would be delusional and it's in another way, but I can say that I'm not defined by it in any way.

And I think you're right.