Several years ago I spent a few months going through Heidegger’s Being and Time.
One finds a simple message there beyond the argumentation, and is better conditioned to accept its truth for having trudged through the terrain laid out before its appearing. The simple message is: you’re going to die, and the only muscular thing you might do is face this fact squarely and stomach its horrors. There’s this nothingness you’re disappearing into. There’s this horror of extinction, this terrifying universe turning in impenetrable silence. Everybody knows it. So why do we flee from accepting that fact and the authenticity acceptance might bring?

Heidegger taught me to accept death, which gave me a strategy for living: show less interest in the end and more in the art of living now. Time gains a limit and definition in finitude; with life properly defined, one might start to live with dignity.

Things took a turn when I realized that the world to come wasn’t real, that it was in fact a sop for dulling the truth that we were going to be food for animals smaller and simpler than us. No one in their right mind would accept that truth if a far better one seemed available. If one didn’t ask too many questions about heaven and hell, those items retained their scope and function, functioning effectively.