Jeff Mason explores it:
For a long time, I have been puzzled by two famous philosophical ideas about death, one from Plato and one from Spinoza. The first is that a philosopher has a vital concern with death and constantly meditates upon it. The second is that the wise person thinks of nothing so little as death. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle. … In the end, it is useful to think about death only to the point that it frees us to live fully immersed in the life we have yet to live.
The Dish 