being all-consumed & wrapped-up in one's own ego-consciousness is the opium for the masses. The rest are just collective diversions; adornments that legitimize one's ignorance & apathy & inherent denial of death. The hero system, the theatre of the absurd...all of it spanked & set into motion.
On the eternal scale, All is One.
In our temporal world, there are endless perceived divisions.
Socrates called his consciousness of death, "practicing death" which was what he believed the true philosopher does. Since wisdom is the ever-deepening understanding of how to live a truly good life, no one can be a lover of wisdom except by continually dying to the perishable; i.e., by relinquishing the control of the ego through meditation & letting the fact & possibilities of one's personal death penetrate the soul on a daily basis. But how do we know that a life lived morally is indeed eternal? The Socratic teaching requires the admission that we simply cannot know what comes after death. It is that mystery which must be embraced. For Socrates, hoping the soul has some kind of immortality is "a belief worth risking; a noble risk." It is a true union of opposites; it is participation in perishing and non-perishing reality simultaneously; it is the tension of living in-between perishing and non-perishing reality. It living Life as Art using Death as an Adviser.