Existential Dread No. 5

There is something that I find both intriguing and fascinating about non-objective abstracts. Yesterday, I posted my representational abstract, “The Ballad of Curtis Loew,” based on a song and memory. This is a painting I did today based on an idea from within me—nothing representational or based on anything physical, at least when I started the painting. I’ll let the viewer decide what they see or feel in reference to the title. I have to say, I do love the underpainting on this. It gives the piece a lot of depth. It looks really nice in real life.

In the context of evolution, human existential crises may arise from our heightened cognitive abilities and self-awareness. As humans developed intricate thinking processes and self-reflective capacities, an increased awareness of mortality, the quest for meaning, and contemplation of one's existence became more pronounced. While an existential crisis isn't necessarily a flaw, it can be viewed as a consequence of our advanced cognitive functions. It might function as a mechanism for individuals to scrutinize and assess their position in the world, fostering personal growth and the formulation of coping strategies. In this regard, it can be perceived as a beneficial function that motivates individuals to explore purpose and meaning in their lives.

Ernest Becker said, “What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, a consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression, and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax, which is why one type of cultural man rebels openly against the idea of God. What kind of deity would crate such complex and fancy worm food?” (The Denial of Death)

Shaping Objects With Light and Making Ideas Real

Art gives us the ability to create ideas and physically manifest them. Think about that: the ability to make something that exists only as a thought or an idea. That is mind-twisting! In my opinion, it’s a good definition of the word magic. See Becker’s quote below.

“Man has “a mind that soars out to speculate about atoms and infinity, who can place himself imaginatively at a point in space and contemplate bemusedly his own planet. This immense expansion, this dexterity, this ethereality, this self-consciousness gives to man literally the status of a small god in nature... Yet, at the same time... man is a worm and food for worms.”

— Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

It can be any form of expression—writing, sculpting, painting, music, photography, etc. Something that engages one or several of our senses. When I was young—10 or 12 years old—I wanted to be a figure sculptor. I got very interested in wax as a material. I visited a wax museum in Orlando, Florida, and I believe it was converted to Madame Tussauds a few years ago.

I was hooked. It was something about seeing the human figure re-created in such a way that you could really study it—almost feel its presence. There were Star Trek figures there; that’s what got me. I had my Polaroid portrait made with Spock. I still have that picture. It moved me tremendously.

One of my favorite things to do is use light to shape objects and bring out the essence of what they are or could be. So many people simply expose a picture and hope for the best. I think that takes so much of the creativity away. It turns creating something into a mechanical exercise.

“Deer Antlers in Ute Pot: Print #2,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print August 5, 2023

"The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus, it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind; they work and are thrown forth without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendor, pinning its bearer to the ground."

Peter Zapffe, The Last Messiah

The species of deer that Zapffe has in mind is the Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus), which thrived throughout Eurasia during the ecological epoch known as the Pleistocene (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). The Irish elk had the largest antlers of any known deer, with a maximum span of 3.65 meters. Historically, the explanation given for the extinction of the Irish elk was that its antlers grew too large: the animals could no longer hold up their heads or feed properly; their antlers, according to this explanation, would also get entangled in trees, such as when trying to flee human hunters through forests.

A surplus of consciousness and intellect is the default state of affairs for the human species, although unlike the case of the deer that Zapffe alludes to, we have been able to save ourselves from going extinct. Zapffe posits that humans have come to cope and survive by repressing this surplus of consciousness. Without restricting our consciousness, Zapffe believed the human being would fall into “a state of relentless panic” or a ‘feeling of cosmic panic’, as he puts it. This follows a person’s realization that “[h]e is the universe’s helpless captive”; it comes from truly understanding the human predicament. In the 1990 documentary To Be a Human Being, he stated:

"Man is a tragic animal. Not because of his smallness, but because he is too well endowed. Man has longings and spiritual demands that reality cannot fulfill. We have expectations of a just and moral world. Man requires meaning in a meaningless world."

The Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus), which thrived throughout Eurasia during the ecological epoch known as the Pleistocene (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). The Irish elk had the largest antlers of any known deer, with a maximum span of 3.65 meters.

A Painterly Desire

I’m reading about Otto Rank’s take on creativity. How a creative life can buffer death anxiety and how there is a dark side to the theory as well. I’m writing about a lot of this in the introduction to my book.

“Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, his isolation from the cultural worldview that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art.”

— Ernest Becker discussing Otto Rank in The Denial of Death

The evolution of this project has been enormous. The journey has taken an organic and authentic path to what I feel is the best work and the biggest contribution I’ve made in my creative life. I talk to my wife frequently about how few people “get this” or are interested in it. We have conversations about what that means or doesn't mean.

For me, it plays no role in my ambition and desire to make the work and offer it to the world. I have to do it. I can feel the effects of the work in my own life. I see photography and art in such a different way now. I see life and human behavior in a new and different way. I feel like I’ve grown and evolved immensely while making this work—it’s humbling and awesome.

I know I would have a larger audience for the project if I paid more attention to social media and marketing. I just don’t have that in me, and I couldn’t care less about it, to be completely honest. However, I do want people to engage with these ideas and my work. Maybe it’s for a different time or a different place. I’m not sure and can’t be bothered with that now. I just need to do the work and keep writing and thinking. I’m so grateful to have the time, health, and energy to do this. I’m thankful beyond words to live a life like this. I do appreciate those who read my essays and rants. I truly appreciate the feedback and the conversations I’ve had because of this project and posting these essays. Thank you. It means a lot to me. You know who you are.

“Rocky Mountain Raspberry Flower and Mullein in a Glass Graduate,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm), June 10, 2023, RA-4 Color Reversal Print (direct positive, in camera, no negative).

I’ve always said that I’m a frustrated painter. I’ve been experimenting with the technical aspects of the RA-4 reversal process (direct color prints) to reflect that desire. I have a filter pack that I’ve dialed in to compensate for the RA-4 color paper. I use my old Petzval lenses for all of these images, and between that old glass and my exposure times, I can get very painterly-looking images. I truly love them. My filter pack and this high-altitude light render black as red or reddish-magenta. The Rocky Mountain Raspberry plants started flowering the other day, and I knew they wouldn’t be around very long, so I crafted a scene where I could have a “painterly” background and isolate that beautiful white flower. I am very pleased with the results. I really love the “apocalyptic” sky in the one print too. The process reveals such wonderful renditions of the flora here.

I’ll continue to work over the summer. I plan on making several landscape images as well as some fauna prints. I’ll continue to work with the flora as the new season brings life to the mountain.

“Rocky Mountain Raspberry Flower and Mullein in a Glass Graduate,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm), June 10, 2023, RA-4 Color Reversal Print (direct positive, in camera, no negative).

Culturally Constructed Meat Puppets and Martin Heidegger

Reading through The Worm at the Core brings awareness to so many other ideas and extensions of these theories. I’ve been getting into Martin Heidegger and his ideas lately. His book (a set of lectures), “Being and Time” is available on archive.org. Forewarning: It’s a difficult book to read. It’s dense, and I don’t understand a lot of it. It was originally written in German, and the translator claimed that it was very difficult to translate into English (some say it’s impossible to translate). He was an extraordinary thinker—way beyond my capabilities to understand. There are some “nuggets” in the book. One of them, pointed out by Sheldon Solomon, is the quote in this essay. That’s what I’m most intrigued by.

Having lived in Germany and having a basic understanding of the language, the word “angst” is used a lot in his writing. I’ve always understood the word to mean “fear.” Most translate it to “anxiety.” What it really means is a feeling of uneasiness, or "dis-ease," or a feeling of not “being at home” (not in the literal sense of home, but psychologically). Heidegger gives a clear and compelling solution to overcoming, or at least coming to terms with, death and death anxiety. Kierkegaard offered a solution of taking a “leap into faith,” and Heidegger offers the same idea, but instead of faith, he says, “take a leap into life.” You can read the deconstruction of his philosophy below.

Another thing that I’ve been giving thought to is a “flowchart” of terror management theory. Breaking it down into a simple, line-by-line evolution of what happens to human beings in life as it applies to coping with the knowledge of death:

• You were born.

• You cry, scream, and shake; miraculously, a “deity figure(s)" (parents or caregivers) appears and your diaper is changed, you’re fed, or you're cuddled. Life is good.

• You grow older and lean on your parents or caregivers for psychological security as well as all of your Maslow needs (shelter, food, warmth, etc.).

• You grow through childhood and the teenage years, learning how to bolster your self-esteem. Your parents or caregivers provide the framework and reward for this. For example, when you learn to use the toilet, “Good boy or girl!” You earn top grades on your schoolwork. “Great job!” You go to the school prom, and everyone says, “You look so pretty or handsome!” This bolsters your self-esteem; you feel significant and have meaning in your life. Death anxiety is held at bay.

• You learn how to respect and honor your country or tribe (Americans put their hands over their hearts and say “the pledge of allegiance”) and the important symbols from your culture: a flag, a cross, a star, a uniform, etc.

• You attend religious services with your parents and learn how to be a “good person” and how to achieve immortality through a religion; this provides psychological security and buffers death anxiety. You know that you will never really die! Life is meaningful, and I have a purpose; my religion says so!

• You separate from your parents or caregivers as a young adult. Now, you look to your culture for the same psychological security that your parents or caregivers provided.

• You quickly learn what your culture rewards and what it doesn’t. This is how your cultural worldview is established and maintained. For example, you might belong to a particular religion you strongly believe in or a political group you adamantly embrace. You might get a promotion at your job, be recognized as “employee of the month,” get a degree from higher education, earn a lot of money, drive a fancy car, live in a big house, get a lot of “likes” on social media, etc. These all provide self-esteem for you. Self-esteem buffers death anxiety. It’s kept repressed and buried deep in your unconscious. In fact, some of you reading this will proclaim, “What are you talking about? This doesn’t apply to me; I don’t think about death!” Exactly. See how well it works? When you’re ensconced in your cultural worldview, it will keep thoughts of death repressed, at least for the most part.

• You go through life wrapped in the illusions that your culture provides—religion, community, politics, relationships, etc. They give you a feeling of significance in a meaningful world (psychological security). This keeps existential anxiety at bay, for the most part.

• You are, at this point, a culturally constructed meat puppet.

• If you are one of the unlucky ones or live in a culture that either doesn’t provide ways for you to bolster your self-esteem or that offers ways that are unattainable for the average person, i.e., not everyone can be a movie star, a rock star, a professional athlete, or the president of the United States, this can, and often does, extend to physical appearance as well. If you’re not thin (especially women) and stay young forever, the culture can be harsh and not only prevent you from getting self-esteem, it will point out your faults and shortcomings: you’re fat, you’re old, you're the wrong color, you have wrinkly skin and gray hair, etc.

• When a person cannot find ways to bolster their self-esteem, they will often turn to drugs, alcohol, eating, shopping, narcissistic behavior, social media, and different kinds of risky behaviors. The 19th-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called this “tranquilizing with the trivial.” One of the reasons the United States has such a high rate of drug abuse, depression, anxiety, and deaths of despair, including those that die by suicide, is because the culture sets standards for attaining self-esteem that are not attainable for the average American.

• According to Martin Heidegger, if one ceases to numb oneself to the knowledge of one's own mortality, known as "flight from death," and instead undergoes what he termed a "turning," they may discover a newfound sense of ease with death anxiety and the inherent truths of the human condition. This turning leads to a greater appreciation for life's simple yet profound pleasures, such as recognizing the beauty in virtuous individuals, the finite nature of humanity, the majesty of nature, or even something as seemingly mundane as a refreshing breeze on a sweltering day.

• Both Frederick Nietzsche and Ernest Becker discussed the concept of the "authentic man" in their respective philosophical works.

  Nietzsche believed that the authentic man was one who lived according to his own values and ideals, rather than those imposed upon him by society or tradition. For Nietzsche, the authentic man was a "free spirit," unencumbered by conventional morality or religious dogma. He argued that the authentic man was capable of creating his own values and living a fulfilling life, rather than being constrained by the values of others.

  Becker, on the other hand, believed that the authentic man was one who had come to terms with his own mortality and the inevitability of death. He argued that in order to live a meaningful life, one must confront the reality of death and the limitations of human existence. For Becker, the authentic man was one who had overcome the fear of death and embraced life fully, without illusions or delusions.

  In both cases, the authentic man is someone who is true to himself and lives a life that is genuinely his own. Nietzsche emphasizes the importance of individuality and creativity in this process, while Becker emphasizes the importance of confronting one's mortality and accepting the limitations of human existence. This is the antithesis of a culturally constructed meat puppet.

Culturally Constructed Meat Puppet

The Terror Management Theory (TMT), which is based on Becker's ideas, suggests that individuals cope with the inevitability of death by developing their self-esteem and identifying with their cultural group. This allows them to feel significant and have a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives.

However, there is a risk associated with this approach, as individuals may become "culturally constructed meat puppets" who are entirely dependent on their roles and conform to cultural standards for their sense of self-worth.

Becker's theory also explains why people tend to fear and dislike those who hold different beliefs or belong to different groups. When reminded of their mortality, people often become more strongly identified with their own groups and view outsiders as the embodiment of evil. This can result in animosity and even violence toward those who are different.

The idea of a “culturally constructed meat puppet” is meant to highlight the tension between our biological nature and our cultural aspirations. On the one hand, we are flesh-and-blood creatures that are subject to the laws of nature. On the other hand, we are aware that we need to create meaning and purpose through our engagement with our culture.

Are you a culturally constructed meat puppet? Humans are like hamsters on a wheel, spinning around and around and going nowhere—or like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountain only to have it roll back down over and over again. We do these things every day to distract ourselves from the knowledge of death. Beware of insatiable desires—money and stuff.

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was a German philosopher who is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century. He is known for his highly original and complex philosophy, which deals with a wide range of topics including ontology (the study of being), phenomenology, hermeneutics (the study of interpretation), and existentialism.

Heidegger's most famous work is Being and Time, published in 1927, which is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. In this book, Heidegger explores the nature of human existence and the relationship between being and time. He argues that human beings are fundamentally "thrown" into the world, meaning that we find ourselves in a particular time and place, and we must make sense of this situation through our own existence.

Heidegger's philosophy is highly influenced by his interest in ancient Greek philosophy as well as his experiences living in Germany during the 20th century. His political views, which included membership in the Nazi party in the early 1930s, have been the subject of controversy and criticism, but his philosophical ideas continue to be studied and debated by scholars and philosophers around the world.

“Turning away from a flight from death, you see a horizon of opportunity that puts you in a state of anticipatory resoluteness with solicitous regard for others that makes your life seem like an adventure perfused with unshakeable joy.”

— Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927)

This quote is a reflection of Martin Heidegger's philosophy, which places great emphasis on the concept of "being toward death." For Heidegger, death is not simply an event that happens to us at some point in the future but rather an essential aspect of our being. In other words, our mortality is not something we can escape or ignore; it is a fundamental part of who we are.

The quote suggests that if one confronts their mortality and does not try to flee from it, they may see a horizon of opportunities that can give their life a sense of purpose and direction. By embracing the inevitability of death, one can live with a sense of "anticipatory resoluteness," meaning that they are ready and willing to face whatever challenges come their way.

Additionally, Heidegger suggests that this attitude should be accompanied by "solicitous regard for others," meaning that we should also be concerned with the well-being of those around us. By living with this kind of awareness and consideration for others, one's life can become an "adventure perfused with unshakeable joy," filled with meaning and purpose.

Heidegger's quote highlights the importance of confronting our mortality and living with a sense of purpose and concern for others. It's a beautiful idea that everyone should work toward. The first step is to understand the true nature of your condition, without doing that, nothing changes.

Finding Meaning in the Meaninglessness

“Light” This is dead Rocky Mountain barley and a small cactus flower that is blooming. This is a 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) RA-4 color reversal direct print (made in the camera). This is about 1 second overexposed - I really like the diptych of these.

““Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning.””

— Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

This coming Saturday, April 22, 2023, I’m going to read the sixth chapter of “The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life” on my YouTube show. This chapter is about symbolic immortality. What is symbolic immortality? It’s the flip side of the coin of human desiring or striving for immorality. One side of the coin is literal immortality (last week’s read), and the other is symbolic immortality. It’s a big driving force in our lives. And it’s very interesting in terms of terror management theory. If you can, join me for the reading, I’m sure you’ll find something vaguely interesting if you’re reading this.

The book really starts to take off with this chapter. To this point, the authors have laid the groundwork for the reasons we lean on repression, denial, and the transcendence of death. They’ve addressed how we use our parents when we’re children for our self-esteem, and then we separate, or individuate, and lean on culture for the all-important tools to repress or deny the knowledge of our impending death and to build self-esteem (which acts as a buffer to death anxiety). They’ve given both historical references and modern empirical evidence about how we respond to death awareness. For me, this is where these theories really take off and we begin to connect the dots.

“Humans are incredibly intelligent. On consciousness: It takes a ridiculously sophisticated cognitive apparatus to render yourself the object of your own subjective inquiry. ”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Since human beings acquired consciousness or became aware that they existed, nonexistence has become a frightening reality. Mortality is on our minds and in our thoughts; it consumes us, and we need a way to buffer, repress, or transcend it. This is true, whether we know it or not, and most don’t (it’s an unconscious activity, like most psychological events). We are so embedded or ensconced in our cultural worldview that we’re blind to what motivates our activities, shapes our desires, and drives us on a daily basis. For me, this is the most revealing feature of these ideas. We’re so far down the rabbit hole (repressing the anxiety) that we can’t make sense of these theories; we don’t understand them. That’s what they’re designed to do: keep us from thinking about becoming worm food. And over tens of thousands of years, they have become so deeply embedded in our psychological landscape that we are shielded from the knowledge of death—at least for the most part.

One way we deal with the terror of death is to transcend it; we mainly use culture to do that. Technology, religion, art, ritual, myth, family, politics, relationships, money, etc.—these all provide some form of immortality for us or ways to repress or buffer existential dread. Why are we so afraid of dying? It’s not the actual event of death that gives us anxiety (some do have anxiety about how they will die), but the knowledge of it. We are living and existing in a meaningless world. We won’t be remembered. It’s the impermanence and insignificance that give us anxiety and dread. We want to be remembered; better yet, we don’t want to die!

“Ernest Becker called this desperation ‘the ache of cosmic specialness.’ Becker states what is patently obvious to most: as humans, we constantly put ourselves at the center of the universe.”

— The Denial of Death

“Life & Light” is a 20” x 20” (51 x 51 cm) these are RA-4 color reversal direct prints (made in the camera).

As Ernest Becker, the author of “The Denial of Death” (1973), pointed out, Freud was wrong. It’s not our sexual drive that motivates our behavior and psychological gymnastics; it’s our fear of death. Peter Zapffe, a Norwegian philosopher, also addressed these theories in his 1933 essay, “The Last Messiah.” Zapffe cites four coping mechanisms we use to repress death anxiety. For Zapffe, our becoming mentally over-equipped has resulted in us becoming “fearful of life itself" and of our “very being." The degree to which we are conscious of reality, which is unlike any other species, also means that we have become acutely aware of the suffering of billions of people and sentient life on the planet, as well as the planet itself.

“The Last Messiah” starts like this (bold for emphasis):

“One night in long bygone times, man awoke and saw himself.

He saw that he was naked under cosmos, homeless in his own body. All things dissolved before his testing thought, wonder above wonder, horror above horror unfolded in his mind.

Then woman too awoke and said it was time to go and slay. And he fetched his bow and arrow, a fruit of the marriage of spirit and hand, and went outside beneath the stars. But as the beasts arrived at their waterholes where he expected them of habit, he felt no more the tiger’s bound in his blood, but a great psalm about the brotherhood of suffering between everything alive.

That day he did not return with prey, and when they found him by the next new moon, he was sitting dead by the waterhole.”

Sublimation, which Zapffe calls “a matter of transformation rather than repression,” It involves turning “the very pain of living” into “valuable experiences.” He continues: “Positive impulses engage the evil and put it to their own ends, fastening onto its pictorial, dramatic, heroic, lyric, or even comic aspects.” He also notes that the essay "The Last Messiah" itself is an attempt at such sublimation. For Zapffe, sublimation is “the rarest of protective mechanisms." Most people can limit the contents of their consciousness using the previous three mechanisms (isolation, anchoring, and distraction), staving off existential angst and world-weariness. But when these forms of repression fail and the tragic cannot be ignored, sublimation offers a remedy, a way of turning the unignorable “pain of living” into creative, positive, aesthetically valuable works. (Partially Examined Life) This is where I find myself—deep into sublimation.

Meaning and Meaninglessness
Everyone has the responsibility to create meaning in their lives. There is nothing inherently meaningful in life. Life is primarily a biological process; it goes on whether we believe in something or not; it simply doesn’t matter; the world goes on. When people ask, “What is the meaning of life?” They are missing the point; there is no meaning; you have to create it, find it, search it out, apply it, and live it. The question should be, “What is the meaning in life?” Your life. Whatever that might be, I believe whatever you do to create meaning is a good thing as long as it doesn’t hurt or infringe on other people's ways of creating meaning.

If you’re religious or have a certain faith or belief in an afterlife and believe in a deity, no problem. If you belong to a sports club or a political group and find meaning and significance there, no problem. If you have a hobby—gardening, cooking, sewing, writing, painting, or photography—that’s great! If it bolsters your self-esteem, makes you feel significant, and gives you meaning, you’re on the right track.

The problem is that, a lot of times, unconscious beliefs infringe on other people's cultural worldviews; it creates hurt, discrimination, oppression, and even death (this usually happens to members of marginalized groups). Everyone needs to find something that provides them with meaning and significance. This isn’t about being right or wrong; it’s about being human and feeding self-esteem to buffer death anxiety. We all suffer from this condition (the human condition). No one gets to say, "That doesn’t apply to me." It applies to everyone.

I’m not a nihilist, but there is some truth in the “nothingness” that nihilists ascribe to, especially existential nihilism. Nietzsche said, "To live is to suffer. To survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." I do ascribe to that idea.

William Shakespeare wrote:
"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I titled this essay “Finding Meaning in the Meaninglessness.” It’s a difficult thing to admit, but everything is meaningless. Everything. For context, when I say meaningless, I mean it in the cosmic sense, not the personal sense. For me, all of my pictures, all of my writings and books, all of my thoughts, my degrees, my life experiences, all of my accomplishments, even my existence, are all meaningless. It’s true, and I’m fine with that truth. What I’ve found is that, while I understand this fact in the cosmic sense, it doesn’t preclude me from finding meaning and significance for myself. All of the aforementioned things are very meaningful, significant, and important to me, including my wife and daughter, who are at the top of my meaningful list, and my friendships and relationships outside of my family.

I’ve created, experienced, and lived all of it for my mental health and well-being, not for some bigger purpose or to change the world. It’s wonderful to be alive most of the time. I’m in awe of the beauty where I live. I’m amazed at the progress human beings have made over the millennia. It’s truly amazing. I’m grateful to wake up every morning.

On the surface, it may seem that I’m trying to change the world through my work, but I’m not. If no one ever read a word I’ve written, looked at a picture I’ve made, or listened to my philosophies about life, it wouldn’t matter—because it doesn’t. They’re not meaningful or important to the bigger scheme of things (cosmic); I get that, and I’m okay with that. I’ve come to terms with it. It doesn’t depress or demotivate me either. In fact, in a lot of ways, it’s freeing and maybe even emancipating in ways. It encourages me even more to express and create.

The only thing I’ve tried to do (intentionally) in my life is encourage people to consider people who are different from them as fully human and try not to do harm to “the other.” And now, with my new work, I’m trying to help people understand what these important ideas have to offer. It would be a much better world, at least for the time we’re here, if we could come to terms with our mortality. As Albert Camus said, “There is only one liberty, to come to terms with death, thereafter anything is possible.”

We're Animals, With One Caveat

I’ve never considered or really pondered the fact that I’m an animal. You’re an animal, too. What does this mean, or why does it matter?

It plays a significant role in the theory that I’ve been working on and studying for this project. It demonstrates the need for humans to isolate themselves (psychologically) from other animals. It’s a critical part of believing in our illusions—illusions to alleviate our death anxiety.

It doesn’t surprise me, though. As I peel this onion of human behavior, each layer reveals something new. I see where all of this fits and why it is the way it is—we need it this way to get out of bed in the morning,

These are cultural constructs to convince ourselves that we're "more" or "above" the animals. But we’re not. The evidence is in the way we hide our bodily functions and how we eat; hiding our animality is very apparent in things like "bathrooms," "plates, cups, forks, spoons, and tables," as well as "making toasts with drinks." Think about it. Observe other animals; how do they handle these functions and tasks?

These are all cultural constructs to help us disguise or hide our animal nature—you’ll never see other animals doing these things. We even disguise our food with names like "steak" or "hot dog." Those words have no real meaning as they apply to food. They are simply used to disguise what we’re doing.

We even disguise sex, the most animalistic behavior of all. We wrap it in "love" and make it something special, rather than simply acknowledging that it's an act of reproduction—an evolutionary drive just like survival. And we do it just like the rest of the animals. This is one of the reasons there are so many taboos, rituals, and rules around sex in different cultures. Ernest Becker said, “The distinctive human problem from time immemorial has been the need to spiritualize human life, to lift it onto a special immortal plane, beyond the cycles of life and death that characterize all other organisms. This is one of the reasons that sexuality has from the beginning been under taboos; it had to be lifted from the plane of physical fertilization to a spiritual one.”

Because of its animalistic nature, it’s an act that most reminds us of our mortality. That’s why we create all of the celebrations around it: flowers, chocolate hearts, “love letters,” fancy dinners, lingerie, holidays, etc. We want to elevate it as an act of “love” way beyond what the “animals” do; we make it “special” because we’re “special.”

It’s a difficult topic to unpack in the context of death anxiety. However, at its core, it reveals our animal nature and what we’ll devise in order to never face it or even admit what it really is.

---

“Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he 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 to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don't know that death is happening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one's dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that's something else.” Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

---

If we accept that we are animals, we are reminded that we will die and become “food for worms,” as Becker said—just like all of the other animals.

If you’ve seen the movie "Elephant Man," the line spoken by John Merrick really solidifies this idea. He said, "I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a man." I know he was saying this in reference to his birth defect and appearance (the way he was being treated), but the argument still stands about how we feel about denying our animality and how insistent we are to separate ourselves from all other living things.

There can be a religious component to this belief. I understand why that is as well. In order to have the illusion of (literal) immortality, which we desire, there has to be something that sets us apart. Some religions even go as far as telling man to "take dominion over all living things and all of earth" (paraphrased). It’s easy to see how humans can believe that they are above other life. There’s another component to this: "Man was created in the image of God." This escalates into an even bigger problem. If you ask most religious people if they believe they’re an animal, they will say, "No, I’m special, created in the image of God; how could I be an animal?" This is what I was referring to in my post about Becker’s hero system. This is the religious component of that theory. It’s an effective illusion if one can maintain it. Both Friedrich Nietzsche and Ernest Becker believed that religion was no longer a valid hero system because of advances in science and technology, and because of these advances, most people have “moved on.” That’s where Nietzsche’s infamous quote came from: "God is dead." This was the idea behind it. Religion acted as a buffer against death anxiety for most people for thousands of years, all over the world, in all kinds of religions. In the last 200 years, we’ve become much more secular and tend to look to culture for our defense against death anxiety. Here again, you can see where we have denied our animality with these religious tenets—placing ourselves above every living thing and the earth itself.

What’s the caveat? What makes us different from animals? We have consciousness, or awareness, of our mortality. Your dog or cat doesn’t know that they’re going to die. They’re completely in the moment of “now.” There are no rabbits talking about being the best rabbit alive! Animals exist with instincts to survive and reproduce. At times, they may have the fight-or-flight instinct and be very afraid, but once out of danger, they never think about it again. In our unconscious mind, we are constantly in fight-or-flight mode. William James said, “There is always a panic rumbling beneath the surface of consciousness.” That panic comes from the knowledge of our impending death. Other animals don’t have this; that’s really the only thing that makes us different. It fascinates me to look at how we live and act, denying the inevitable (our death) and trying to hide the fact that we are animals. We would show our animality if we didn't have this knowledge. We would be exactly the same as all of the other animals.

I’m slowly, but surely, putting these pieces together. These are the pieces of these theories that show us who we are and why we are the way we are: human behavior. I’m specifically interested in the reasons we commit evil acts and how our death anxiety is revealed through acts of genocide, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and “othering.” We have so much to learn about these topics. In the end, I hope to share a tiny piece about the role that art can play in disclosing ways to deal with these big topics.

---

“Denial of death, or, in psychodynamic terms, repression of death anxiety, generally results in banal and/or malignant outcomes—for example, preoccupation with shopping or the need to eradicate people who do not share our beliefs in a self-righteous quest to rid the world of evil. Repressed death anxiety is often projected onto other groups who are declared to be the all-encompassing repositories of evil and who must be destroyed so that life on earth will become what it is purported to be in heaven.”

Sheldon Solomon author of “The Worm at the Core: The Role of Death in Life

---

Live Stream on January 7, 2023: In the Shadow of Sun Mountain

I hope you can join me on Saturday, January 7, 2023. I’ll be doing a live video stream via my YouTube channel and/or Stream Yard. You can watch and chat (text) on YouTube, or you can join in with video/audio on Stream Yard.

I’m going to talk about the progress on my project, “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering.” I’ll share some of the work, talk a little bit about my writing and research, and just give a general update. I’m happy to have a discussion and answer questions, too.

I’ve been working on this for just over a year (started the work in September 2021). I hope to complete it by the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024. I’ll talk about all of that and share some interesting insights about working on a project like this. I’ve had a couple of questions about how I’m connecting the death anxiety/psychology to the photographs. It should be an interesting conversation.

Stream Yard link (for live video): https://streamyard.com/se43n54spq

YouTube link (chat): https://youtu.be/_uIYtPkYMw4

Roland Barthes: Studium & Punctum

A year or two ago, I had a YouTube show where I talked about Roland Barthes’ book, "Camera Lucida: Thoughts on Photography." It was published in 1980. In the book, Barthes questions the nature of photography and comes to some interesting conclusions and thoughts about it. I want to talk a little bit about what he calls "studium" and "punctum" in photography.

He thinks a lot about the relationship between photography and death. That interests me a great deal. As I work on my project (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain), I find myself connecting the photographs and death quite often. I have a lot of medicinal and ceremonial plants that I’ve photographed for my work. A lot of them made very nice images; they are beautiful and interesting to look at and think about. However, they’re all dead now; only the photograph remains. If you read Susan Sontag’s book “On Photography,” you'll find that she had some of the same (or at least similar) positions as Roland Barthes on this topic. It’s not a stretch to make these connections. Death and photography are twins. As Sontag said, “Photography is momento mori.”

The photograph captures a moment when the person photographed is neither subject nor object. He perceives himself as an object; he has "a micro-experience of death." The person in the photo no longer belongs to himself; he becomes a photo object that society is free to read, interpret, and place according to its will. This is a great way to explain what photography does: it objectifies. This makes it both interesting and dangerous, and I don’t think many “photographers” think about this, especially when photographing certain groups of people.

The target of the photograph is necessarily real. The subject existed in front of the camera, but only for a brief moment, which was recorded by the lens. The object was therefore present, but it immediately becomes different, dissimilar from itself. Barthes concludes from this that the noema (the essence) of photography is "it-has-been." The photograph captures the moment, immobilizes its subject, testifies that he "was" alive, and therefore suggests (but does not necessarily say) that he is already dead. The direct correlation to memento mori can be found here; if he isn’t dead now, he will be.

Photography brings a certainty of the existence of an object. This certainty prevents any interpretation or transformation of the object. The death given by photography is therefore "flat," because nothing can be added to it. In photography, the concrete object is transformed into an abstract object, the real object into an unreal object. The subject of a photograph is no longer alive, but it is immortalized by the physical medium of photography. However, this support is also sensitive to degradation. Something to think about as we pursue our illusions and “immortality projects.” Nothing, and I mean nothing, lasts forever. What’s the difference between 500 years and 10,000 years? Not much. It will all go away eventually. We will all die and everyone will be forgotten,

Studium
What is studium? Studium is a Latin word meaning "study," "zeal," "dedication," etc. Studium indicates the factor that initially draws the viewer to a photograph. It refers to the intention of the photographer; the viewer can determine the studium of a photograph with their logical, intellectual mind. Studium describes elements of an image rather than the sum of the image's information and meaning. The studium indicates historical, social, or cultural meanings extracted via semiotic analysis. In other words, you can see references to culture and time in the image. Sometimes they are juxtaposed ideas that conflict with one another or make a cultural or political statement, and sometimes not. This can be an abstract reference or an implied reference as well. Whatever the context, it draws the viewer in.

Punctum
What is punctum? It’s defined as “a small, distinct point.” Barthes uses it to refer to an incidental but personally poignant detail in a photograph that “pierces” or “pricks” a particular viewer, constituting a private meaning unrelated to any cultural code. The punctum points to those features of a photograph that seem to produce or convey a meaning without invoking any recognizable symbolic system. This kind of meaning is unique to the response of the individual viewer of the image.

These are really important ideas to me. As I study my photographs for this work, I find myself employing them as much as I can. Especially punctum. This unspeakable “something personal” that can’t be defined with words is really the essence of any good photograph. If you try to describe it with words, it goes away. I know it may seem antithetical to my position on the importance of narrative, but it’s really not. In fact, it supports the narrative idea fully and wholeheartedly. If the image is well-made and reinforces the story, the punctum will fully support it, even taking it to a new level. Bathes said. “However lightning-like it may be, the punctum has, more or less potentially, a power of expansion.” This is exactly what I’m after. The expansion. This idea transcends photography in a way,

The ultimate effect of punctum is the intimation of death. This is something Barthes realizes in the personal context of his bereavement over the still recent death of his mother. Looking at a portrait of her as a young girl (a picture called “The Winter Garden" that he declined to reproduce in “Camera Lucida”), he sees that her death implies his own. This is death awareness, or consciousness of death. Photography has the power to remind human beings that they will not be alive forever. In fact, you never know when your time is up. It could be today or in 50 years. We never know, but we should bring it from the unconscious to the conscious. If we did that, our world would be a much better place for everyone.