"Courage To Be"

"The popular belief in immortality which in the Western world has largely replcaced the Christian symbol of resurrection is a mixture of courage and escape. It tries to maintain one's self-affirmation even in the face of one's having to die. But it does this by continuing one's finitude, that is one's having to die, infinitely, so that the actual death never will occur. This, however, is an illusion and logically speaking, a contradiction in terms. It makes endless what, by definition, must come to an end. The "immortality of the soul" is a poor symbol for the courage to be in the face of one's having to die."

-From "Courage To Be" by Paul Tillich [a theologian and a philosopher who explained courage and what it is to be truly courageous mainly in relation to being and nonbeing; the anxiety of fate and death; the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness; and the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. In brief, "Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of nonbeing", he writes].


life on earth must come to an end, and His will must be done.

-kimmy, feeling the urgency to not waste her life.