Our ancestors had become bipedal, self-reflective imaginative primates who could, as Otto Rank put it, “make the unreal real.” How awesome to be alive, and to know it. What was not to like? Drought, famine, pestilence, or disembowelment by hungry lions was not to like. Drowning and decapitation were not to like. And if you were lucky enough to elude all these catastrophes, witnessing the ravages of time transform an active, vivacious family member into a frail, mentally feeble shadow of his former self, and considering one’s inevitable future in light of this transformation, was not to like.
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