There is a story told of a shepherd named Lysan. He spent his days among flocks, watching lambs born in the spring, watching them grow, and watching them eventually die. He buried dogs that had guarded him for years, and one summer he buried his own father beside the pasture. Standing over the grave, he wondered whether he himself was different from the beasts he tended. The sheep returned to dust. His father returned to dust. And one day he too would return to dust. He whispered a question carried on the wind: Is my fate any different from theirs?

“I also said to myself, ‘As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.
Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other.
All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless.
All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.
Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?’”
(Ecclesiastes 3:18–21, NIV)

These verses strip away human pretension. We imagine ourselves superior, builders of cities, seekers of wisdom, dreamers of eternity. Yet death levels us. The Teacher insists: “the same fate awaits them both.” We and the animals breathe the same breath, and both return to dust. It is an unsettling vision, one that denies easy consolations.

Theologians have wrestled with this stark claim. Gregory of Nyssa, writing in the fourth century, argued that the distinctiveness of humanity lay not in escaping mortality but in being destined for resurrection. For him, death is real, but it is not final. Origen, earlier still, taught that mortality reveals our creatureliness, our dependence on God. Death humbles us, reminding us that we are not gods but dust. Yet he also pointed to Christ’s resurrection as the divine answer to this humbling. Ecclesiastes names the riddle; Christian theology answers it with hope, but only after facing the riddle without denial.

Philosophers too have taken death as the great equalizer. Martin Heidegger argued that to be human is to be being-toward-death. Our finitude defines us. The authentic life is not one that ignores death, but one that faces it squarely, recognizing that every choice is made under the shadow of mortality. Albert Camus, by contrast, rejected transcendence. Death, for him, is final. The absurd lies precisely in the fact that we long for meaning but are confronted by death’s silence. To live authentically, for Camus, is not to hope for deliverance but to revolt, to live as if meaning were possible even though death has the last word.

Martha Nussbaum, reflecting on ancient Greek tragedy, argued in The Fragility of Goodness that human life is defined by vulnerability. We are exposed to chance, to suffering, and ultimately to death. Even the best life, the most virtuous character, is fragile, subject to forces beyond our control. In this, humans are not unlike animals: vulnerable, contingent, dust-bound.

Qoheleth’s question, “Who knows if the human spirit rises upward?”, remains haunting. It acknowledges our ignorance. We want certainty: humans rise, animals perish. But he refuses easy answers. Death is mystery. Our spirit may ascend, or it may not. This humility is part of his wisdom: to confront mortality without rushing to deny its power.

Modern life often avoids this confrontation. We hide death in hospitals, shield children from funerals, speak of “passing away” rather than dying. We pamper pets, extend lifespans with medicine, and dream of technologies that might conquer aging. Yet Ecclesiastes whispers through all our evasions: dust you are, and to dust you will return. The animals remind us of what we prefer to forget. Every pet grave is a prophecy of our own.

But what does this recognition teach? Heidegger would say: to face death is to live more authentically, to seize life as finite and therefore precious. Camus would say: to accept death’s finality is to revolt against despair, to live as though each moment could be affirmed despite its end. Nussbaum would remind us that death reveals our fragility, and therefore the depth of our dependence on love, community, and care. Gregory and Origen would say: mortality humbles us, but it also prepares us for the hope of resurrection. Without facing dust, the promise of rising means nothing.

The didactic lesson is this: do not live as if you were exempt from the fate of beasts. You are not. Your breath is the same as theirs, your dust the same as theirs. To know this is not to despise life but to live it more fully. Pretension collapses; humility begins. If you build your identity on the illusion of immortality, you will be crushed. If you accept mortality, you may learn to live wisely, gratefully, attentively.

Lysan the shepherd stood over the grave and realized that his fate was bound to his flock’s. Yet instead of despair, he found a strange solidarity: to be human is to share in the dust of all creatures. His grief did not vanish, but it was reframed. Death remained, but so did the recognition that life, fragile and fleeting, is gift. And perhaps that is what the Teacher would have us learn: that the fate we share with the beasts is not curse alone, but truth. And in that truth lies the beginning of wisdom.