Debt

I used to think (to the extent that I thought about it at all) that the phrase 'we all owe death a debt; and it must be repaid, sooner or later' was a striking, thought-provoking way of thinking about death. Now it occurs to me it is a way of normalising and naturalising the economy of borrowing and lending. After all, if we look at it from the other way around, we can hardly help observing: not all monetary debts are repaid ...