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"We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin."
I must put it even more simply than "death" and mention that my first thought was at Change. With a capital 'C'.
Note that life is cyclic. The water cycle. Spring to summer to autumn to winter and back. Day to night, night to day. The tides. The beginning of a life is the start on a pathway to death while a death allows other lives to flourish. Everything is interconnected and everything changes... but the more it changes, the more it seems to stay the same.
Hope and despair tend to be more seperate to most minds. One "man"'s hope is another man's despair. Sauron's hope is Gandalf's vision of a really bad idea. In certain situations, however, once things have changed, the terms become inseperable, which is what I think 'Gorn was getting at.
Think in terms of Frodo: his greatest hope was to succeed in the task. In order to carrying this out, he knew that he was very likely going to die. Not a pretty picture, but a clear one: in order to do what he must, he must make the ultimate sacrifice. His was truly selfless a decision... for the sake of the world's peace and survival, he was willing to go through torment and finally death with little or no recognition and little chance for success.
The term that comes to mind is "bittersweet". Life is tinged with death, hope is tinged with despair. Every beginning must have an end and every beginning must follow one. As soon as something changes, one must embrace the future while sadly letting go of the past.
Whether my thoughts make sense to anybody but me, I can't be sure. But I hope they help.
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