The real sting here isn't the memento mori platitude—it's that Jobs identifies *fear of loss* as the actual prison, not death itself. Most people hear "you'll die" and think *carpe diem*, but he's pointing to something subtler: the moment you believe you have something to protect, you become cautious, defensive, small. A person launching their first business often takes wild creative risks that they'd never consider once they have employees depending on them, a mortgage, a reputation to shield—yet those later constraints are far more suffocating than mortality ever was. Jobs suggests that naming death directly is the lockpick that frees you from the self-imposed cage of protectionism.