This seems like a cheap trick to hook someone into a blog post (ironically, Gwern seems to disregard this almost universally).

If I were reading a book and each chapter started with such a "hook," it'd start to feel like a LinkedIn post.

Chapter 1: I didn't know what it felt like to be alive until I was dead...

Chapter 2: Death was nothing compared to what came next: judgment.

Chapter 3: I thought I knew what judgment was until...