SAPERE XLII: On grief and the right way to deal with it

Edited by Markus Hafner and Robert Porod. Introduced, translated, and provided with interpretive essays by Alexander Free, Markus Hafner, Andreas Heller, Birgit Heller, Erich Lehner, Robert Porod, and others.

Lucian's essay "On Mourning" takes up ethical and religious questions that have been important for people at all times: How should a person cope with the pain of having a close person snatched away by death? How should one cope with the loss? How should one imagine the condicio of the dead? Common ideas, as Lucian demonstrates, nourished the fear that the dead person would fare badly, and thereby also increased one's own fear of death. The dead person, who is introduced in a speaking manner, counters this with the (cynically connoted) proof that the dead person is actually better off, since he no longer has any needs. Thus, despite all the satirical dressing of the thoughts expressed in this writing, one can also sense the conviction that man is better off if he succeeds in overcoming or at least reducing his fear of death through rational thought.

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