Death and Jacques Derrida

Derrida -- that great philosopher -- passed away recently, in early October, from a disease. A few weeks ago I read the last interview he gave in August in which he said (translated roughly from Dutch, as I had read it in a Dutch magazine):

"Learning to live should also mean that you learn to die, that you assume absolute mortality as the basis, and learn to accept it, without expectation of salvation, hope for recovery, or delivery for yourself or for another. The classical philosophical exhortation since Plato: to philosophise is to learn to die..."

A smile overcame me at this point, for I have said exactly the same, in my book. That Derrida and I have both come to the same conclusion gives me an enormous sense of self-satisfaction. Through mortality greatness attains immortality. Derrida may be physically gone, but the heritage of ideas he has left behind will count for more in the end...