Schweitzer cuts past our usual worry about physical death to expose something more insidious: the slow extinguishing of our own capacities while we draw breath. It's not about becoming cynical or hardened—plenty of bitter people remain sharp-eyed—but rather the quiet surrender of wonder, ambition, or moral conviction we once possessed. A person can maintain their job, their routines, their pleasant demeanor while the part of them that asks difficult questions, that laughs without permission, that reaches toward something beyond comfort, simply closes its eyes. Watch someone return from a decade in an unfulfilling career, still healthy and functional, yet noticeably smaller in spirit—that's what Schweitzer means.