Don’t you love Latin words? I’m being facetious. Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem roughly translates as “Remember you’re going to die; make the most of life!” This is a very old saying from the Romans. And Memento Mori, Amor Fati roughly translates as, “Remember you’re going to die; love your fate.” Friedrich Nietzsche said this. Let’s address these and talk about some definitions.
KNOWLEDGE & WISDOM: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
What’s the difference between “mortality salience” and “mortality sapience?” I’ll give you my definitions and explain why they are important to distinguish from one another.
“Mortality salience.” To simplify, I would rephrase this as “mortality knowledge.” This is the knowledge that you’re going to die someday. It’s similar to knowing that when you flip the light switch to the on position, the light will come on. You know that will happen. However, you probably don’t understand how electricity works.
“Mortality sapience,“ rephrased to “mortality wisdom.” Have you ever heard the saying, "Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is knowing not to put it in the fruit salad?” In very simple terms, that’s the difference between knowing something and understanding it.
Learning new information involves storing information, which is knowledge. You know something. On the other hand, wisdom is more concerned with insight, acceptance, and the basic "essence" of things in life. So there is a wide chasm between knowing something and understanding it.
MEMENTO MORI ERGO CARPE DIEM & MEMENTO MORI, AMOR FATI
Terror Management Theory (TMT) proposes that humans experience a fundamental psychological conflict between the instinct of self-preservation and the understanding that death is both inevitable and, to some extent, unpredictable; a state described as mortality salience. TMT is based on the pioneering theoretical work of anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning 1973 book The Denial of Death argued that mortality salience drives most human action – and thus, much of human civilization.
TMT also proposes the schema of symbolic immortality as a coping mechanism in the face of mortality salience. The term “symbolic immortality” was coined by Harvard psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton and his colleague Eric Olson.
Lifton and Olson identify five primary methods or modes of transmission of symbolic immortality, which can be summarized as:
1) the theological (religious teachings on the supernatural survival of the soul)
2) the biological (genetic and ephemeral family heritage)
3) the creative (long-lasting artistic, scientific, and/or benevolent achievement)
4) the natural (via participation in the eternal cycles of the material universe)
5) the experiential (transcendental experiences of timeless insight).
This can be considered a symbolic immortality system within which mortality salience is the first stage, followed by an immersion in what might be described as mortality sapience. (Alt-death/Duende)
Sam Keen’s introduction to the current edition of The Denial of Death: “Becker sketches two possible styles of nondestructive heroism (…)
For the exceptional individual, there is the ancient philosophical path of wisdom. Becker, like Socrates, advises us to practice dying. Cultivating awareness of our death leads to disillusionment, the loss of character armor, and a conscious choice to abide in the face of terror. The existential hero who follows this way of self-analysis differs from the average person in knowing that he or she is obsessed. Instead of hiding within the illusions of character, he sees his impotence and vulnerability.
The disillusioned hero rejects the standardized heroics of mass culture in favor of cosmic heroism, in which there is real joy in throwing off the chains of uncritical, self-defeating dependency and discovering new possibilities of choice and action and new forms of courage and endurance. Living with the voluntary consciousness of death, the heroic individual can choose to despair or to make a Kierkegaardian leap and trust in the “sacrosanct vitality of the cosmos,” in the unknown god of life whose mysterious purpose is expressed in the overwhelming drama of cosmic evolution.”
“Seven Crow Feathers (detail)"—a whole plate palladium-toned photogenic drawing on waxed vellum paper.
The photogenic drawing straight from the contact frame - pre processing.