The subject of mortality may or may not come up overtly in my therapy sessions, but it is always implicit, always hovering about the conversation, always seeking to pull us back down into a special thoughtfulness. Today I was talking with a woman who lamented some of the roads not taken in her life, and, with a chagrined expression, said, "and this is where I will always be, always falling short."
"What are you so afraid of," I asked. "It used to be of what people would think, or who would be there to take care of me if I did what I really wanted to do with my life. And today, I guess I am afraid of dying." "Well, you traded freedom for security and wound up with neither. Isn't it time you decided it might be worse to relinquish your fearful grip than fear the end of your life?"
If, as is sometimes argued, anything which separates us from nature is pathological, a grand denial, a self-estrangement, or moral evasion, then surely our flight from our mortal nature falls into the "neurotic." When Jung said that "neurosis is the flight from authentic suffering," he was asserting that we cannot evade suffering, only be captive to its neurotic evasion. Of all of our defenses, our most primitive is denial, greatly abetted by distraction, which is the chief "contribution" our popular culture makes to us. What other culture evolved complex systems to present extravaganzas of sport, exposed flesh, political circus, and programmed violence equal to ours? Well, perhaps ancient Rome--panum et circum--bread and circuses to distract, divert, and entertain the masses. Are we pleased by this comparison?
While it is natural for that slim wafer we call "ego," namely, who we think we are at any given moment, to bob and wave, and hope the scythe of the Grim Reaper passes over, it is also the surest course to deeper levels of despair and anxiety as inevitability exerts its will. Underneath so many of our neuroses, our pathologies, both private and societal, is the elemental fear of death. This fear is not pathological; it is natural and normal. What becomes pathological is what it makes us do or what it keeps us from doing with our lives.
There are some strange paradoxes to be found here in this fear. Is it not a greater fear to arrive at the end of our journey, however long or short it may prove to be, and recognize that we were not really here, that we did not live our journey? I recall that as a young person I twice walked up to receive an advanced degree thinking, "if I had known they were going to graduate me, I could have enjoyed this whole thing." I considered then, and even more now, those as rich periods of life lost to anxiety and compulsive coping behavior. I have learned a bit from those and other moments of clarity. At the end of our life would we be inclined to say, "if I knew it was going to end, I could have enjoyed it?"
By "enjoying" I do not mean frivolous wasting of time, or hang-dog obeisance to duty, but having risked investing our energy in whatever provides deep satisfaction to us. If that emotional reciprocity between investment and return is not present, then it is not right for us, however strong our social conditioning. Through our timidity we relinquish the gift of this journey. If there should prove to be an after-life, then it is another life than this one, with another agenda. This is the only one of which we are sure.
Another paradox lies in the fact that it is precisely because our journey is limited that our life has meaning. If we could simply do this or that for a century, and something else for another, then life would lose its bite. The emperor sitting on the veranda with nothing to do but munch grapes and seek diversion has a most miserable life. The slave who lights a fire of freedom in his mind's eye, the gladiator who says yes to the combat that comes to his door, the woman who sacrifices for her child's possibilities are infinitely richer. All of them will and do die, but how did they live while here?
So, in the presence of our symptoms: the troubled marriage, the persistent self-sabotage, the eroding addiction, we may all be brought to a larger place by a periodic consideration of mortality. What am I afraid of, really? What shabby excuses are holding me back? What does life ask of me as this point in the journey? Where will I find the most meaningful experiences of my life?
When we ask those questions with sincerity, and summon a measure of courage, we will find that we are too busy living a fuller life to be side-tracked into Angst-ridden swamplands or distracting way-stations. It is all right to be scared; it is not all right to live a scared life.
James Hollis, Ph. D. is a Jungian analyst in Houston, TX, author of 13 books, the most recent of which is What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life.
Lee Lipsenthal, M.D.: The Paradoxical Emotions Of A Fatal Diagnosis
John Selby: Death Is Your Real Life Coach
Christal Smith: On (Public) Death and Dying
Therese Borchard: Video: On Death And Dying
I loved this sentence. Wonderful article but this sentence is so very profound. I just sent it to my daughter. It's Not at the mall, not texting. The 'nots' could go on for miles. It's the Where's that are more difficult and that leave you open and vulnerable.
the difference between how others seem to view mortality and how
I view death.
The best I can ascertain is that others seem to see death as a "loss",
to themselves. Someone 'leaves' them, they have an empty place in
their lives, they don't know what they will do without that 'special other'
in their lives.
My point of view is "purpose". For what purpose did this person choose
to die at this particular point in their lives? Had they attained all of their
goals? Did they believe their death would be a lesson to someone else?
Were they tired of this life and it offered no more surprises, no more
challenges? Did they believe their death would benefit someone they
were attached to? How?
My fathers death caused a great search of my families' lives together and
I finally understood his role and my mothers role, and I love them both
the more for what they did for me.
For me, death is a 'purpose' driven action just as living is a purpose driven
action, and it is so by the person who is in charge of their lives. It is not
something that 'just happens'. There is actually a reason for everything,
even death, we just have to take the time to understand it.
Dropped out of school at 14 to join the partisan movement against the Axis and after the war got forged certificates of high school education and used his contacts to get into college. Ended up with a PHD in Ag and became the Minister of Agriculture for a Soviet Republic. After the union fell apart there was no need for his kind or his generation, so he started a business which became moderately prosperous.
The way of death is much more personal her than the states. We stopped the clocks, covered the pictures, turned out the lights, lit candles, threw away a symbolic measure of his working life, then the women chased we men out so they could wash the body and dress him. My brother in law has the casket stored on his balcony and when he gets here we'll put the body in it and the vigil will begin.
His sun will shine on all of you. My thoughts are with you and all your family.
Most interesting is how my sense of regret for things undone has waned. I do not focus so on what was lost, not done,as much as enjoying all that I have and will do. I judge myself less, ... While I still expect much, it is more a will to do certain things, than a burning urge. Best of all, they are beginning to be more of my choosing as my children have grown, and even as two marriages have ended. Not a reason to divorce so much as a consolation after loss.
I find myself admiring the simple truth of lives, no matter how long they might have been, and measured only against themselves, each a bloom of inimitable worth. Just right the way it was.
Those thoughts help me to see every life I encounter in its own light, ... and so, my own.
This life suits me. If I die, I'll be content for I'm ahead of the game. I'm content to let younger people run the world. The world is their concern. The younger people know what they are doing & of the consequences of their conduct. It's time for me to move on to the adventure of death.