Thinking about the End

Disturbing emotions underlie the human response to endings. These include the speechless horror and awe in the face of great catastrophes, the hypnotic allure of the hideous and monstrous, fear of the dark and unknown, the dread of death, and the hope of salvation from destruction. These and many other passions – terror, panic, fright – survive and easily prevail over the counsels of reason whenever such feelings arise. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.