Obsession with mortality functions as a form of psychological slavery.

Evidence

Take, for instance, death: nothing that a man can do will make him immortal, and it is therefore futile to spend time in fears and lamentations over the fact that we must die. To be obsessed by the fear of death is a kind of slavery; Spinoza is right in saying that ‘the free man thinks of nothing less than of death’. — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2115

Categorization

• XREF: XREF connects to philosophical ethics and coping mechanisms in Stoicism. — connects to: Obsession is a pathological narrowing of focus anyone could suffer — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 381; The colonized perceive life as permanent struggle against omnipresent death — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 415; Bourgeois racism signals that the ruling class senses its own mortality — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 93
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2115

Broader Connections

• The colonized perceive life as permanent struggle against omnipresent death #responds-to (0.78) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 415