I want to direct this essay directly at you. I want to talk about your death anxiety. I’m trying to find the best way to succinctly explain it to you. I want to explain what it is, the fact that it exists in everyone, how you repress it and why, and what happens when your illusion is challenged. I hope you get something from it.
The first issue to deal with is understanding that death anxiety is the main driver or motivator in life. In hierarchical order, this is at the top. Everything else would be listed below it. Everything. Also, if you didn’t know it, it’s the premise of my project, ”In the Shadow of Sun Mountain.” This is what the work is about.
First things first, in that order. Like other living creatures, we have a strong instinct to stay alive. We are also the only beings (or animals) that know we are going to die. That creates some major cognitive dissonance, psychologically speaking. What does that do to us exactly? It creates death anxiety. How do we cope with death anxiety? We repress it. We bury it deep in our subconscious. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to stand up in the morning. It would be overwhelming.
How do we bury it? What mechanisms are in place to do that? To answer those questions, we need to address illusions, or what Becker calls “immortality projects.” He says we all strive for heroism. It’s our cultural worldview that provides the buffer and allows us to put death out of our minds. We bury this terror (the knowledge of our death) through our cultural worldviews. Whatever our culture holds up to be meaningful and significant is what we use. For example, we find meaning and significance in our jobs, our families, our social clubs, making art, religion, holidays, earning money, a manicured lawn in suburbia, material things, a fancy sports car, being youthful, being famous, etcetera, etcetera. It’s anything that the culture holds up as meaningful and significant. These distractions allow us to psychologically bury the terror of mortality. Striving for heroism distracts us from the reality of our human condition. Everyone has a buffer; if they didn’t, they would be in a constant state of anxiety and depression. Sheldon Solomon said if we had to psychologically deal with our death—if it was constantly on our mind—we wouldn’t be able to stand up in the morning. We’d be reaching for a Valium the size of a Buick to deal with existing. Whether you realize this or not, you do it every day. That’s how you make it through each day.
"The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death." - Gore Vidal
Some “immortality projects” are not ideal—the pursuit of wealth and fame, for example. While it seems worthwhile and meaningful, it’s always short-lived and very superficial. The pursuit of staying young through surgeries, botox, and hair dye will only last so long too. It’s all done in vain and will never work—none of them will. However, some are better for humanity and the environment than others. I believe good or healthy projects include creative pursuits, spending time with loved ones, being in nature, critical thinking, authenticity, and working on gratitude, humility, and openness. Albert Camus said, “There is only one liberty, to come to terms with death, thereafter, anything is possible.“ I think what he meant by this is that living in reality, as harsh as it may be, will give you freedom—true freedom from the illusions we use to buffer the anxiety of death. I think of Buddhist monks, for example. They understand that life is suffering (death anxiety) and meditate every day on death.
What happens when your illusion is challenged? Anytime your anxiety buffer, or illusion, is challenged, it will cause you to react in a negative way. Religion or politics are good examples of this. When someone from a different religion or political group says or does something you disagree with, it makes you angry, it stirs emotion, and it makes you question, subconsciously, if your illusion is the correct illusion. When that happens, your instinct is to defend your illusion, sometimes at all costs. This is where the treatment of “the other” comes into play. We start wars, we kill, we ostracize, we humiliate, and we hate all to defend our illusion or worldview. That’s how much we want to buffer the knowledge of our death and impermanence.
TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY (TMT)
This is a great video to explain all of this. The movie, “The Matrix” really deals with TMT and how we fashion the world we want to live in or not.