Day 129 - Denying Death

“Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Death, no one wants to think about it - there's too much life to live. Mortality is as significant as being born. Cultural anthropologist, Ernest Becker, wrote a book called The Denial of Death - a gripping read involving some of the greatest minds in history and their ideas on how humans are psychologically/philosophically burdened and motivated by the fear of death.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is about the art of dying, an entire process of recognizing and supporting dying people; how to help them consciously transition by reading the text aloud after they've gone. 

I attended a Death Doula seminar, which also is about aiding people in the weeks before passing from this world to the next (this one, and the one we don't remember, the bardo beyond). It is also about comforting families and friends with practical knowledge and space.

It is a subject that most people prefer to stay away from, as it can seem morbid, and frankly no one wants to think about it - Hence, the denial of death as a way of living life. However, I truly believe that accepting death, indeed embracing death, is the most important part of experiencing life fully, the continual awareness that our existence here is temporary. The importance of death is only rivaled by birth, yet birth is the thing that everyone appreciates, because we get to see one grow up, it is a definite reality - death is just a big downer that we shouldn't talk about, because the reality afterwards is basically unknown.

Socrates, the Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Western moral/ethical thought, urges us to face our mortality, and in doing so, purify our motives - "The examined life". Something rings true in the way that people, striving to avoid pain and concentrating on physical survival, also tend to avoid doing the right thing, because 'doing the right thing' often involves the banal achievements of supposed success. The distractions of status, reputation, material prosperity and bodily pleasures keep us from examining authentic existence, and the depth of awareness required to move beyond such corporeal conquests.

This is not to say that our endeavours to become our best selves can't include the achievements of wealth and health - it is to say that the wider scope of perceiving life with the full spectrum of understanding our mortality has a profound impact on our psychological well-being and physical health (ironically).

A meaningful life is more than the words written in an obituary, obviously. People should allow for the rituals around death to become celebrations of what was overcome, what was instilled to others, what was created and what kind of energy/space was shared in this world. In that sense, the accomplishments we work toward become more about character and less about roles.

A meaningful life is created with the knowledge that we are all experiencing the same types of things, and with that knowledge, a genuine grief and joy about our personal stories and a respect of the grief and joy in the stories of others. In this way, all of our decisions become more holistic and less self-centered. 

I look forward to the discussions that inevitably come about with my friends and family regarding the possibility of immortality beyond our physical being - what some people call the soul journey. These conversations enter the realms of fantasy and philosophy because that's the only place they can go - an endless sojourn into the obscure.

The more we talk about it, the better we handle not only the death of loved ones and ourselves, but the better we handle living our lives.