I’m considering what the title of my doctoral dissertation might be.
The school calls it a “vision-seed.” It’s an interesting way to put it. It makes sense. They say:
“Growing Your Vision-Seed
In our new transdisciplinary applied doctoral program, the PhD in Visionary Practice & Regenerative Leadership, each student begins their journey with the spark of an idea or a desire, a personal calling. We call this initial spark the vision-seed. Our program is designed to help students nurture, incubate, develop, and bring to fruition this life-giving spark as they fulfill their unique purpose.”
There’s no doubt it will change over time. I’m going into this doctoral program with a confident plan. The ideas may shift a bit as I work my way through, but the main thesis will remain in tact to the end.
My dissertation title is "Confronting the Void: An Examination of Death Anxiety, Death Denial, and Terror Management Theory Through Artistic and Cultural Lenses.” This may change, and it might not. Everything is fluid at this point.
The main point of the work will be working through the theories as they apply to creative people. I’m using myself as the subject, and possibly others as I move through the program; I’m not sure. The dissertation will deal with the intersection of mortality and art—how does a creative person process their mortality? Is it different from a non-creative person?
For the past couple of years, I’ve been writing an autobiography (the best way to describe it) to examine my own journey and how I came to art through my life experiences. I’ve blended that writing with these theories and my artwork. I feel like it will be a powerful narrative in the end. Describing how creative people deal with the knowledge of their death.
Ernest Becker said: “Man is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.” (Denial of Death)
To be forgotten and not matter (impermanence and insignificance) is unbearable psychologically speaking. We don’t want to be a nameless, faceless, forgotten being. We long for recognition. We long to be noticed and admired. We long for immortality, literal or symbolic.
Why do we get up every day? What drives us? What is the essence of human nature? Culture offers a range of possibilities for heroism or immortality projects, in which death is denied and an illusion of immortality constructed. These illusions buffer death anxiety, making it possible to function day-to-day.
Most people fail to recognize their condition. Their illusions ensnare them so deeply that they fail to recognize reality and the weight of consciousness. This is how evolutionary psychology describes the defense mechanisms against the knowledge of death. The coping mechanisms work for most people—look at the world around you— look at how people spend their time doing trivial, meaningless stuff. It’s all a distraction from confronting the void or coming to terms with death.
“Becker Faces: Subconjunctival Hemorrhage,” watercolor on paper. Sometimes, the panic and anxiety are palpable in people. I’ve been exploring painting these “Becker Faces” with watercolor. There are a few I like. Watercolor gives a certain freedom, and the way it blends and separates at the same time is beautiful.