A hero doesn't reject death or try to evade it. He embraces death. And through death, he
finds the meaning of life. From your study guide, see point # 2 under Gilgamesh and Joseph Campbell, near the end of the handout: "Campbell says that all these stories involve journeys and battles that produce psychological transformations or elevations to different levels of consciousness. Campbell says that a mythic hero embraces death only to discover the meaning of life, and becomes more alive in his dying than at any other time. This is surely the case with Gilgamesh. Properly understood, the quest for Humbaba is not a misguided juvenile exploit that turns out badly, resulting in a mistake that has to be fixed. Instead it has value precisely because it sets the stage for the second (and more important) journey. By making the second quest necessary, it makes the whole cycle of quests more like the story of a complete human life."
At the beginning of his life, a man seeks adventures to establish an identity. But once he's achieved this goal, he realizes that the uniqueness of his identity, his reputation, is less important than the humanity he shares with his brothers. He must go on a second, more spiritual journey to find out what that is. In other words, first a man goes on a quest to find his identity, and then he goes on a more important quest to lose the identity he's found.
Man has a drive to tame nature. But he's also a creature within nature, subject to nature's laws. If he tries to escape his own subordination to the laws of nature, he loses his place in nature, his human identity, and ultimately his soul.
Children prefer intellectual friendships to passions of the body and heart. This is why they're too young to marry. But in order to grow up, they have to learn to place the body and its passions first. If they don't, they won't sacrifice their own fantasies and wants to pave the way for the next generation.
No man is an island.
Death comes for us all.
On your deathbed, you won't be thinking what a great king you were and how great your funeral will be. This is no consolation. In fact, contrary to what most men think, there is no consolation for death in wealth, status, fame, or achievements. If death has any consolation, it can only come in the form of spiritual knowledge you gained while you were alive.
This spiritual knowledge (see # 7) has to do with defining or discovering life's purpose. Each man decides for himself what that is.