Uncommon Moments: The Greatest Fear Isn't Death
13 Jul 2026 · 14 min
In this short, reflective Uncommon Moments episode, host Liam Applegate explores the Marcus Aurelius quote, "It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live," using it as a springboard to discuss fear, stoic philosophy, and the importance of living fully. He references modern stoic writers like Ryan Holiday and historical figures such as JFK to illustrate stoic practices in high‑pressure situations. Applegate then connects the theme to his recent documentary, Boundless: The Man Who Became Human, about biohacker Ben Greenfield, noting how fear of death can paralyze the biohacking community and prevent authentic living. He shares a series of personal favorite quotes— from Ophelia in Hamlet, Seneca, an anonymous saying about words, and Kevin Kelly’s admonition to "pay attention to what you pay attention to"— each reinforcing the central message that quality of life, attention, and purposeful action outweigh fear of mortality. The episode concludes with a call‑to‑action to attend the documentary’s multi‑city tour and a reminder to focus attention on what truly matters.
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Welcome to another Uncommon Moment. I believe this is number 4 or number 5, and I've only done a couple of these, but these are really popular episodes. They're short episodes that just kind of highlight things I've been learning. And this quote means a lot to me. What I want to do is I want to go into a deep dive, or not necessarily a deep dive, but I want to go into this quote that we actually put um, in our documentary. So the quote is from Marcus Aurelius, and it, it says, "It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live." I want to read that again. "It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live." Marcus Aurelius is really smart when you look at this quote. He was a Stoic, um, he was really into Stoicism, and there's been certain things around Stoicism that you could criticize. And when you look at Stoicism to its essence, there is certain things you could criticize. But one thing— I read a lot of Stoic books from Ryan Holiday, truly incredible books, really great author, really, really good books just in terms of self-control, teaching yourself how to keep yourself under control even in hard times. Like, you look at JFK as a president during the Cuba— Cuban Missile Crisis. He was able to use Stoic practices to be this kind of leader where he didn't need to basically use a lot of emotion. Now, Marcus Aurelius is a pioneer in this movement, but what I really like about this quote specifically is, "It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live." What does this mean? Well, people can be so frightened about what if I die, what if I, um, what if my plane crashes, what if certain things happen, right? And there's so many different things. What if, um, I ask this person out, or what if I do this, what if I do that? And I've certainly been there before where you start overthinking it, you start overthinking all the things that make you, you know, as a kid, you don't question or you don't, you're not afraid of a lot of things. You're almost courageous in a way. And when you look at this, this quote, right? You could be so caught up in fearing death that you never live. You never begin to live. You don't know what life is like without fear. You know, fear that you're not going to make the right decision. Fear of risk. Fear of failure. Fear of never getting back up, fear of all these certain things. And at the end of the day, what you don't realize is that fear— you're never going to live. And we talked about this in the J.K. Rowling episode, which was the last episode, where she kind of talks about this idea where if you don't do that, then you're— that fear is like death itself, right? You're never going to live. And the reason why I bring up this quote, the reason why I want to make an Uncommon Moment episode on it is because we put this in the beginning of our documentary. So I worked on a documentary called The Boundless— called Boundless: The Man Who Became Human. It's about Ben Greenfield. And Ben Greenfield is this biohacker, and he is a pioneer in the space, really into health and wellness and really genius guy. And we wanted to do a documentary on him. And thankfully, I was brought in. My dad works in films. He works with people like this, and he's done a couple of films. And he did a film on Ben Greenfield. And we picked this quote at the very opening sequence, the very first intro. It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live. And we picked this because the interesting thing about this is you can fear all these things. You could gain the whole world. You could— you can have so much success or you can have fear of death. There's a thing in the biohacking movement, not to get too niche, but there's a fear in the biohacking movement that you're going to die. That certain things will happen to you where you're gonna die, you're not gonna come back, all these. And then you start fearing that you're— you get into so much fear that you start to not live. You're scared of going out into the sunlight, scared of taking walks, scared of, um, doing normal things, right? And at the end of the day, you have so much fear that you never begin to live. And what was exemplified through the documentary is what truly matters is your family, um, keeping everything in the right kind of balance. And it kind of goes against everything. So I'll link to the website down below. You can actually get tickets. We're doing, um, a tour, um, a 4-city tour, um, and we're going to be in London, Austin— it's more like 5 or 6 cities, but London, Austin, Miami, New York. Um, so truly incredible. LA And this was the opening quote for the whole sequence. And I really want to talk about just a couple more quotes on life and living fully, because that was the first opening quote for actually my next episode. I was going to do an episode on a bunch of quotes, and one thing I wanted to really focus on with this is I was going to just focus on this quote for this episode, for this Uncommon Moment. But I want to read through a couple other quotes. That really talk about life and how to live fully. And these are quotes that I've compiled over the last couple years that have really just, um, stayed with me. And so we look at, um, this quote, and for some reason I was reading Hamlet, and it says, "We know that we are, but know not what we may be." And this is from Ophelia. And let me just read it again. "We know what we are, but know not what we may be. We know— so we know our identity, we know who we are, we know what we do, but we don't know the potential. We don't know what we may be, right? And sometimes you need to get out of your little shell. You need to get out of your— you got to get outside of yourself. You got to get out of that fear. You got to get outside of yourself to find your potential, to find what you may be. Right. Um, the next quote is from Seneca, and this is great. I talked about this in the J.K. Rowling episode. As is a tale, so is life. Not how long it is, but how good it is. That is what matters. That's from Seneca. I believe he was another Stoicist, which is really interesting. Um, let me read it again. As is a tale So is life. Not how long it is, but how good it is. That is what matters. When you read this and when you listen to it, as is a tale, do you want a story that is rich? If you, you, if you pick up a book, if I pick up a book on someone's life, do I want a story that is rich and full and good? Or do I want a story that's kind of dull and long? That's not the point of life. You, you're not trying to prolong it to the longest it can be. That's not the point of life. The point of life is how good is it? How are you spending time with others? How are you living your life? Is it in a good way or in a bad way? Are you living fully? That's what makes a good tale. That is what matters for you and for the person reading your story, right? That is what— that's what's important. Not how long it is, not if you live to 500 years old or you know, however long. But the goal is to see how good is life and what is— it's, you know, quality over quantity. When you really think about it, that's the essence of the Seneca quote. The next one is, "Words are the only things that last forever." I pulled this from a book or somewhere. I don't even know where it's from. Maybe a podcast episode. Words are the only things that last forever. When you really think about it, it's like, how do we get our history? How do we get, um, certain things? And it's like through books, through stories, through words that are written down on paper and given to us over time. And that's what makes up religions, you know, uh, countries, states, um, institutions. You go down the list. Words are the only things that last forever. It was a really good quote. And when you think about our, um, our world, that, that is true. You know, you look at Earth, you look at, um, all the things that have been passed down, it's been through, um, writing and words and, um, spoken languages and pretty much everything. And so it's really interesting. And I've been very blessed to work on a lot of things at my age, and being able to work on the documentary has been incredible. And I really wanna make this episode because the goal is to focus on your life and living fully and finding your purpose. And I really recommend watching the documentary if you, when it comes out and it's available worldwide, because it's the type of show that shows you what you may be missing. Right? And so I really encourage that. And then just the last quote that I really want to share that really just popped out. I wasn't going to share this. I was going to save it for my next episode, but it says, pay attention to what you pay attention to. That's what Kevin Kelly said. It's really interesting. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. The key with this Is it? It's just like you are who you surround yourself with. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. What are you watching? What is the content you're consuming? The movies you're watching, the TV shows you're watching, the books you're reading, the people you're surrounded yourself with. Where, where do you live? Where, where do you normally visit? All these things matter. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. And that's the key, right? You need to pay attention to what you pay attention to, because if you don't, there is a high chance that you're going to be swayed towards something that you may never have chose. If you want to, um, if you want to live a better life, if you want to feel better, you know, eat better, right? Go to sleep on time. Wake up early, work out, certain things that it's like, pay attention. It doesn't even have to be attention span. Like, what are you doing with content? It's like, are you going to bed on time? Are you brushing your teeth? Are you, are you doing certain simple things that is really, you know, you should just be doing. And another quote, because this whole attention thing is very fascinating. So much of what fights for our attention is so far outside of what actually matters. So much of what fights for our attention is so far outside of what actually matters. We think of social media, we think of all these social media things, right? Where you're on social media, you miss a moment, you miss an X post or Instagram post or Instagram story, and it's only 24 hours and all these things. And it's like, At the end of the day, how much of that actually matters? You know, everyone— the world is fighting for your attention. People are fighting for your attention. Influencer influencers are fighting for your attention. But pay attention to what actually matters, the people that you're around, and pay attention what you, you know, what you pay attention to. It's very simple stuff, but yet we forget it amidst, you know, you know, in the midst of all the chaos, of all the, the saying you're going to do something, but yet you don't do it right. And that's the key, you know, pay attention to what you pay attention to. Um, fight for your attention because other people will if you don't. They're going to fight to get it. They're going to fight, you know, you could waste years of your life on your phone or, um, on certain things that, you know, if you just looked up and got ahead of the weeds or outside of the weeds, you would see everything. Um, so that, that's just a short episode. Um, again, uh, you know, pay attention to what you pay attention to. Live fully. Um, it is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live. Great quote from Marcus Aurelius. I will leave a link to the documentary down below if you want to see it. This is one of my favorite things I've worked on in the last year, and I've been very busy with it. Please give it a watch if you have any time. It would truly change your life, and I would be really excited to see what you guys think. So go to the website. See if we're coming to any of your cities. I'd love to see you there. It is something that I've loved working on. And again, it is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius. Thank you guys for listening to this episode, this Uncommon Moments. I might record another episode on more quotes like these, but this is just a quick, brief, short episode that I want to get out. So thank you guys for listening and I'll talk to you guys again soon.
