Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a
justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they
will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they
have cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who
has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him
to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to
overcome it - so at least it seems to me - is to make your interests gradually
wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and
your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual
human existence should be like a river - small at first, narrowly contained
within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls.
Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more
quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the
sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can
see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the
things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality,
weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish
to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no
longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.&