"Death is Nothing to Us...When we are, death is not. When death is, we are not."
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Raphael Raul -
October 11, 2025 at 2:05 PM -
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Here is a pastel with gouache on watercolor paper that I painted, illustrating a quote from Epicurus's Letter to Menoceus.
"The quote, "Death is Nothing to Us...When we are, death is not. When death is, we are not."
This is, for me, the most precise and succinct writing on death I have come upon.
...And, it reads like a great, simple poem...true and beautiful.
Yes, it's also straightforward: the material body dissipates, dissolves, and vanishes, back into its original building blocks —atoms and void.
That death is nothing to fear, as it is not here when we are alive, and when it comes, we are not alive to suffer physically or mentally. ...So, relax, enjoy the life we have, the simple pleasures, and the philosophical and artistic delights of the mind and spirit. "Pleasure, Contemplation, and Creation" are surely the life of those Gods that Epicurus writes of, with whom, like them (although they are far away from the affairs of men), we too can live as Gods, here and now on earth, with pleasure and philosophy as our guide and path.
....Raphael-Raúl
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