Slow Havamal: 16

In the sixteenth verse, we’re told that unwise men think they can avoid death by avoiding a fight altogether, but that even if they succeed in escaping weapons, old age will grant no peace.

We’re not very good at imagining our deaths. Of course, we can come up with a mental image of the event—of a possible instance of the event—but when I try, it feels as though I’m watching a movie. It isn’t me, and it isn’t likely to come true. At least not that specific example. I know that, so the unconscious error to think, “death, the abstract event, won’t come true.” Thus an unwise man avoids those particular situations which might believably lead to his demise. He knows intellectually he will die, someday, somehow, but he lacks the belief.
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