To Buffer or Not to Buffer?

Why Not Just Buffer?

Buffering is the psychological and cultural process that regulates our awareness of death, embedding it within beliefs, identities, and meanings that make it tolerable enough to live and function. Most of us do this constantly, automatically, and without knowing it. The question worth sitting with is not whether buffering happens, but what it costs, and whether there is anything worth preserving on the other side of it.

Why not simply buffer and numb out to the reality of mortality? If it keeps us functional, stable, even relatively content, why not leave it in place?

One answer is pragmatic: in many cases, we probably do need some degree of numbing. Becker, Zapffe, and the Terror Management theorists who followed them are fairly clear on this. Zapffe, the Norwegian philosopher whose work predates and in some ways anticipates Becker's, argued that human consciousness is biologically overbuilt for survival. In "The Last Messiah" (1933), he wrote that we are the only creatures who can foresee our own deaths, and that this foresight is not a gift but a burden we spend most of our lives managing through what he called anchoring: attaching ourselves to fixed values, identities, and purposes that hold the abyss at a manageable distance. A fully unfiltered awareness of mortality is not something most people can sustain without consequence. The real question, then, is not whether buffering exists, but how much of it we rely on, and at what cost.

The argument for remaining conscious, at least intermittently, has less to do with moral superiority and more to do with what becomes available when the buffer loosens. When mortality is not fully suppressed, certain patterns become visible: the contingency of one's worldview, the constructed nature of identity, the fragility of meaning. That recognition can be destabilizing, but it can also open a different kind of responsiveness.

From one angle, this is about accuracy. You see more of what is actually structuring your experience rather than mistaking the structure for reality itself. That doesn't dissolve the structure, but it introduces a degree of reflexivity. You are not only inside it; you are also aware of being inside it.

From another angle, it shifts the register of creative work. If anxiety is only buffered, it tends to get displaced into symbolic systems that reinforce the existing worldview. If it is metabolized, even partially, it can move through the work differently, less as defense and more as material. That is where the distinction between buffering and processing becomes meaningful. It is not that one eliminates anxiety while the other doesn't. It is that one reorganizes how anxiety circulates. Rank made a related observation in Art and Artist (1932), arguing that the creative act is never simply a resolution of anxiety but a repeated negotiation with it, one that can either fortify the existing character structure or, in rarer cases, begin to transform it.

There is also an ethical dimension, and it is sharper than it might first appear. In Escape from Evil (1975), Becker argues that the same defensive structures which protect the individual from death anxiety can, under pressure, harden into aggression toward those who embody a different answer to the problem of mortality. We don't buffer privately alone; we buffer collectively, and we tend to protect those buffers by marginalizing or harming whoever threatens them. Greater consciousness doesn't automatically dissolve this dynamic, but it does make it harder to participate in unconsciously. You begin to see the mechanism, and seeing it introduces at least the possibility of refusal.

At the same time, there is no guarantee of relief or clarity. In some cases, increased awareness simply intensifies the tension. That is why many traditions, philosophical and religious alike, have treated this not as something to be exposed but contained. The Stoics practiced memento mori as a disciplined, bounded form of mortality awareness, not an invitation to sustained exposure (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, c. 161–180 CE). The point was regulation, not immersion.

What Does a Fully Unbuffered Life Actually Suffer?

If you take the idea seriously, "fully unbuffered" is not just more awareness. It is a qualitative shift in how experience is organized.

At the psychological level, the first consequence is overwhelm, not in a vague sense but something closer to what Becker describes in The Denial of Death (1973) as the terror that symbolic systems exist to manage. Without the usual filters, mortality is no longer abstract or deferred. It becomes immediate, pervasive, and difficult to bracket. The ordinary scaffolding that keeps experience coherent begins to loosen, and what follows can register as acute anxiety or panic.

Cognitively, meaning itself begins to destabilize. If cultural narratives, identities, and purposes are seen through completely, they may lose their binding force, not because they are simply false but because their constructed nature is no longer hidden. The risk is not just doubt. It is a kind of flattening, where distinctions between what matters and what doesn't become harder to sustain. That can slide toward nihilism or toward a collapse of motivational structure. Yalom describes something like this in Existential Psychotherapy (1980), noting that confrontations with mortality, when uncontained, can produce not liberation but a disorienting loss of the ordinary purposes that structure daily life.

Functionally, this matters. Action depends on a certain degree of selective blindness. You go to work, make plans, take risks, invest in relationships, all under conditions where death is backgrounded. If it moves fully into the foreground, it can interrupt those processes. Why build, strive, or commit if the endpoint is not just known but constantly present? Some people might still act, but the basis for action shifts, and often weakens.

There is also a social cost. Shared worldviews are not only individual defenses; they are collective agreements, what TMT researchers Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon (1986) describe as culturally constructed realities that function precisely because their members treat them as given rather than chosen. When one person steps too far outside them, communication strains. You begin to see the rules of the game while others are still playing it as if it were simply the world. That produces a particular kind of isolation, not dramatic, not always chosen, but persistent.

At the extreme, what full unbuffering describes starts to resemble states that clinical psychology would classify as pathological: severe anxiety disorders, depersonalization, certain forms of existential depression. That does not mean the perception is wrong. But it does suggest that the human system is not built to sustain that level of exposure continuously.

Which is why the metaphor of a dimmer switch is more useful than an on/off toggle. It implies regulation rather than elimination, a system that allows glimpses, moments where the structure thins and something more fundamental shows through, before reconstituting itself so that life can continue. The question is not how to remove the buffer entirely. It is how to move along that spectrum without collapsing; how to see more, at intervals, and still remain capable of living, acting, and making. That is the territory this work tries to stay inside, not because it is comfortable, but because it is honest, and because something that might be called clarity, or at least a less mediated relationship to being alive, waits on the other side of looking.

References
Aurelius, M. (2002). Meditations (G. Hays, Trans.). Modern Library. (Original work written c. 161–180 CE)

Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. Free Press.

Becker, E. (1975). Escape from evil. Free Press.

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). Springer.

Rank, O. (1932). Art and artist: Creative urge and personality development (C. F. Atkinson, Trans.). Alfred A. Knopf.

Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.

Zapffe, P. W. (1933). The last messiah (G. R. Tangenes, Trans.). Philosophy Now, 45, 21–24. (Original work published 1933)

The Red Hand Problem

How artists metabolize existential anxiety, and why the work still matters.

I keep returning to the same question, no matter how many theories I read or objects I make: What exactly happens to existential anxiety when it moves through the hands of an artist?

Not rhetorically. Mechanically. Psychologically.

The image above is one attempt to make that process visible. Three pale figures stand upright, stripped of detail, reduced almost to afterimages. They are not portraits so much as placeholders. Awareness has rendered their bodies thin. Over them reaches a red hand, oversized and intrusive, neither comforting nor gentle. It interrupts and intrudes. It stains. It marks.

That hand is not expression. It is intervention.

Most people manage death anxiety by keeping it diffuse, by never letting it fully localize. The artist does the opposite. The anxiety is brought forward, concentrated, and given a task. Creation becomes a site of containment. The fear does not disappear, but it changes state. It becomes workable.

This is what I mean by metabolizing existential anxiety. Not purging it. Not transcending it. Converting it into form.

Psychologically, this matters more than we often admit. The act of making gives the anxious mind boundaries. Time slows. Attention narrows. The self becomes less abstract and more procedural. The question shifts from What does it all mean? to What happens if I put this here? That shift is not trivial. It is regulatory. It allows consciousness to stay in contact with mortality without flooding.

The white figures in the image are not victims. They are witnesses. They stand because the hand is doing something on their behalf.

This is where arts-based research comes into focus for me. ABR is often framed as alternative knowledge production, which is true but incomplete. Its deeper value lies in its psychological function. Making becomes a way of thinking that does not rely exclusively on symbolic abstraction. Image, material, gesture, and repetition—these are not illustrations of insight; they are the insight.

When anxiety stays purely cognitive, it spirals. When it enters the body through making, it circulates. It acquires rhythm. It becomes legible.

This brings me to the harder question: is there any value in writing books like Glass Bones and Rupture?

If the goal were resolution, probably not. No book resolves the fact of death. No theory seals the crack. But that has never been the real task. The value lies in creating sustained containers where anxiety can be held long enough to be examined without collapsing into distraction or denial.

These books are not answers. They are pressure vessels.

Writing them will force me to stay with the material—psychologically and ethically—longer than images alone sometimes allow. It slows the metabolism. It traces the process. It makes visible what is usually hidden: how fear becomes form, how rupture becomes method, and how meaning is provisional but still worth making.

The red hand, then, is also authorship. It is the decision to intervene rather than look away. To touch the thing that makes us uncomfortable and accept the consequences of contact.

Artists do not escape existential anxiety (not at all). They work it. They give it edges. They give it weight. They give it somewhere to go.

That’s not a cure.
But it is a practice.
And in a culture built on denial, practice may be the most honest form of value we have left.

Existentialism, Absurdism, and Nihilism

It’s always a bit surprising to me when I meet creative people who aren’t into philosophy or psychology. To me, those topics are the backbone of a creative life—maybe that’s just my take—but they’ve always been a creative driver for me.

Philosophy and psychology offer so much to draw from as an artist. I've always been drawn to existentialism and consider myself an existential artist, incorporating elements of absurdism and nihilism into my work. That interest is actually what inspired me to write this.

If you’re curious, there are three philosophers you should definitely know about: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism), Albert Camus (Absurdism), and Friedrich Nietzsche (Nihilism). They all wrestled with the big questions—why we’re here, what it all means, and how to navigate life’s inherent lack of meaning. Their ideas have shaped how I see the world, though for me, Ernest Becker and Terror Management Theory have added another layer that goes even deeper.

I’ll break down a bit about who these thinkers were and what they’re known for.

Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher, lived from 1905 to 1980.

The term "existentialism" is commonly associated with him. I’m an existentialist. No question about that. But I lean into all of the ideas around existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist philosophy centered on the idea that humans have absolute freedom to create their own values, purpose, and meaning in life.

Sartre believed that humans are "condemned to be free" and that existence precedes essence. I agree with his sentiments. He thought freedom was the bigger issue. Becker made a similar argument about the fear of living. True freedom scares people—we want to be told what to do and how to live—hence culture.

The old Greek thinkers thought that “essence” preceded existence. In other words, everyone is born with a purpose. It's evident to me that this is not the case. Sartre meant we need to assign meaning to our lives—we need to find or create constructs that keep us going. That’s evident to me, and Becker/TMT drives this point home.

The meaningless in your life is a gift. You can assign any meaning you want to it. Life is fleeting. You’re entirely free to make your life mean something. That is true freedom.

Bad faith. Sartre defined "bad faith" as a central concept in his work that describes the act of self-deception, or deceiving oneself into not having the freedom to make choices. Sartre believed that people act in bad faith to avoid short-term pain but end up suffering long-term psychological consequences. He believed that people can only realize their full potential as human beings by making difficult choices. He also believed that people who act in bad faith are more like objects in the world than conscious human beings.

According to Sartre, we have complete freedom over our lives in a world without religion or objective meaning, but with enormous power comes immense responsibility. Let that sink in for a moment: you have the power to shape the life you want to live. Most people are like robots—programmed by culture—culturally constructed meat puppets. This time of year, I see it ramp up to the extremes.

You can make wise decisions for yourself, but how do you know which ones are good? How often do you act against your own self-interest and experience positive moments when things are going well for you?

Sartre died from pulmonary edema (“wet lungs”)—probably from smoking.

Albert Camus, a French/Algerian philosopher, lived from 1913 to 1960.

Albert Camus is the father of “absurdism.” He said, “The literal meaning of life is whatever you’re doing that prevents you from killing yourself.” Nothing could be more straightforward than that. At its core, Becker also discusses this concept, albeit from an existentialist perspective rather than an absurdist’s one. Your cultural worldview or meaning system is what sustains your existence. Period.

Camus addresses the search for meaning but says that the universe is indifferent to our need for meaning. This is where the concept of absurdity becomes relevant. It’s an adjective that’s defined as utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false. According to Camus, our need and search for meaning are absurd. It’s meaningless. How absurd! Having said that, he doesn’t recommend suicide—that’s allowing the absurdity of life to win; he doesn’t recommend religion or any ideology (nationalism, capitalism, etc.); he called that philisophical suicide. He recommends facing the absurdity (a form of rebelling) and being content. His famous line is “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

“If the world were clear, art would not exist.”

— Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Camus is saying that the very lack of clarity in the world—its absurdity—gives rise to art. And I would add that art (creative life) plays a major role in quelling death anxiety—maybe just another way of saying it. Art is humanity’s way of contending with the questions that have no final answers and finding beauty, connection, and expression within that struggle.

Camus died in a car accident in 1960.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1901) was a German philosopher and critic.

People often cite Nietzsche as a nihilist. I suppose he was a kind of nihilist (and not), but he offered more in terms of thought and purpose than most nihilists do. His famous quote is “God is dead.” People frequently quote it, often taking it out of context. The full quote is: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?”

Nietzsche intended the quote to reflect the changes he saw in European society at the time and to urge people to wake up to the rapid changes in Western culture. He was making a valid point in saying that Christianity was the foundation of meaning and purpose for almost two millenia, and now technology has taken its place, leaving people confused and depressed (or lost) trying to find meaning without religion. Can you imagine what he’d say today? Oy! He wanted to hasten nilhisim in the hope of getting past it—that's the optimistic par’t happen.

Speaking of artists inspired by philosophy, you can listen to Black Sabbath's "God is Dead" song (video below). It’s classic Black Sabbath! Nietzsche’s quote is at the heart of it.

Was Nietzsche a nihilist? Nihilism is the belief in nothing. Extreme pessimism and radical skepticism, which condemn existence, are often associated with nihilism. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and have no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy (destorying might be a purpose). I’m skeptical that anyone alive is a true nihilist. If you were a true nihilist, you would have died by suicide the second you truly believed in nothing.

In my personal opinion, Nietzsche embodied a kind of optimistic nihilism—I don’t believe he was a hardcore nihilist. Your opinion may be different.

Nietzsche died from a stroke. They say he was insane (possibly from syphilis).

“Abiogenesis,” 7” x 5", November 30, 2024, acrylic on paper.

Do You Make Existential Art?

“UFO and Dirt Tipis,” 6" x 6” (15 x 15 cm) Collodio-Chloride print from the wet collodion negative above.

I think you do.

"Existential art" refers to a form of artistic expression that explores themes central to existentialism, a philosophical movement that focuses on the individual's experience, freedom, and responsibility in an often indifferent or absurd world. Existential art grapples with deep, universal questions about existence, existential anxiety, meaning, alienation, death, freedom, and the human condition (the denial of death). It typically emphasizes personal experience and the emotional and psychological struggle of confronting these fundamental existential issues.

There are some key characteristics of existential art; does your work fall into any of these areas? They include:

Confrontation with Death.
As death is a major concern in existential philosophy, existential art frequently explores death anxiety, the inevitability of death, and how it impacts the individual's sense of self and meaning in life. Death anxiety, the denial of death, and terror management theory are the basis for my work. This is what I lean on for context and motivation.

Themes of Absurdity and Meaninglessness.
Many existential works reflect a confrontation with the seeming lack of inherent meaning in life, a central theme in existentialism. This often leads to depictions of despair, absurdity, or the search for meaning in a chaotic world.

“We are like books. Most people only see our cover, the minority read only the introduction, many people believe the critics. Few will know our content.”

— Emile Zola

Freedom and Choice.
Existential art often examines the individual's freedom to make choices and the accompanying burden of responsibility. The freedom to define oneself and one's existence is juxtaposed with the anxiety or dread that this freedom can generate.

Alienation and Isolation.
Existential art frequently portrays feelings of alienation, isolation, and estrangement from society, other people, or even oneself. The individual’s search for authenticity and personal identity in a world that can feel impersonal or hostile is a recurring subject.

There are so many artists past and present working in this area. Too many to mention without leaving a lot out. However, a few that come to mind are Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Paul Klee, and Edvard Munch. Munch’s famous painting The Scream expresses existential dread, or Alberto Giacometti, whose sculptures often reflect the isolation and vulnerability of the human figure.

“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Writers like Ernest Becker, Soren Kirkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Franz Kafka have explored existentialist themes in literature, and directors like Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky have used visual storytelling to explore existential issues in film.

The overarching goal of existential art is often to provoke the audience to reflect on their own existence and mortality and search for meaning in a world that may not offer easy answers.

I’m particularly interested in this because I’ve been making existential art for 35 years. It is a matter of perspective and narrative. If you haven’t read my advice on creating a body of work, check it out.

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

— Oliver Sacks, Gratitude