How to tell a rigid personality from a strong one: rigidity is armor against death. 'The armor of character was so vital to us that to shed it meant to risk death and madness.' The person who can never relax their self-image, who is compulsively consistent and defended, is wearing character as a shield — because underneath the armor is the terror they can't face. The rigidity is the tell: what reads as strength is really a wall built to keep out the awareness of mortality.

— In our words · Source: The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker)