You should use courage when facing death. You should use caution when dealing with your fear of death. But we do the opposite. We try to run away from death. And when it comes to our thoughts about death, we're careless and reckless. We just ignore the whole thing. Socrates called these attitudes 'tragic masks.' Think about how children are scared of masks because they don't know any better. We react to life events the same way children react to masks. What makes someone a child? Ignorance. What defines a child? Not knowing things. When a child learns, they're just as capable as we are. So what is death?
Confidence (courage) then ought to be employed against death, and caution against the fear of death. But now we do the contrary, and employ against death the attempt to escape; and to our opinion about it we employ carelessness, rashness, and indifference. These things Socrates properly used to call tragic masks; for as to children masks appear terrible and fearful from inexperience, we also are affected in like manner by events (the things which happen in life) for no other reason than children are by masks. For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of knowledge. For when a child knows these things, he is in no way inferior to us. What is death?