Why We Continue Looking at the Sky

How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn’t have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopped describing the sky, simply listing what they see... We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It’s a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don’t want to die.



~ Umberto Eco, Interview with Der Spiegel, 2009.

Umberto Eco died a few days ago, but he lives on in his books, articles, essays and interviews. He has left a huge legacy that will surely benefit generations to come. Sit tibi terra levis, Professor Eco.