Why All Homo Sapiens Are "As If" Personalities

Humans create a wonderful defense against their demise, a self-serving narcissistic fortress, in which their impending importance actually throws a shadow over a clear perception of reality. Of course the truth is that whether the end is tomorrow or ten years later, the only effect the ending of their life will have will likely be 

on the one or two people who are dependent on them. For these select few the loss will be catastrophic. The others will mourn and then go on with their lives. While you may feel you'll never get over the passing away of a friend, mourning will likely turn to nostalgia and then eventually into the kind of sublimity that Wordsworth describes in “Tintern Abbey” in the wistful recollection of the lost soul’s “unremembered, acts/Of kindness and love.” The walls consciousness creates around mortality are impregnable and only pierced by death itself. If Heidegger said that it’s impossible to lead an authentic life without an awareness of death then literally all of humanity are “as if” personalities.