For Epicureans, including Lucretius, the way out of this psychological conundrum was straightforward. First, we must become aware of our fear of death; then, we must recognize that it is irrational to be afraid of death. After all, the Epicureans argued, bad things can only happen to those capable of sensation. Dead people are devoid of all sensations, just as we all were before we were conceived. Being dead is thus no different from never having existed. No one is terrified of the time before they were born, so why fret about death, since it is precisely the same insensate state that
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