Nine Days with Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Piety and Death

"It is difficult to fear death if one is very pious."

Alas, KL has made me take spiritual stock of myself again. I never used to fear death, and then I had children. I then came to fear death . . . for their sake. Of course. And I came to obsess about money . . . for their sake. Of course. And I came to watch more TV and movies . . . for their sake. Of course.

The exigency of raising a family forces a youth to abandon his idealism, but I have little doubt that it brings its own dulling and danger. Parenthood causes one to put aside self-centeredness, but that self-centeredness sneaks back into the soul somehow and, once it sneaks back in, it doesn't even have the idealism to cushion it.