Memento Mori
It’s a cold, crisp morning in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Several deer are searching for a place to sleep when suddenly a wolf is spotted. Immediately the race is on. Instantly a battle for life and death ensues. Just moments before everything was peaceful, and things looked as though the deer had yet again survived to live another day. Now their lives hang in the balance.
We are all part of this same competition that we like to refer to as life. To the best of our knowledge, deer do not walk around thinking about the past or the future. These creatures are not, as far as we can tell, capable of contemplating, what is a life well lived? These animals simply walk around, driven by their strongest urge at the time. The underlying premise of their lives is biology and the survival of the fittest.
Although we are animals by nature, we have a tremendous capacity for abstract and symbolic reasoning. From here, we have developed entire fields of study (philosophy, psychology, science, and mathematics) that, to our knowledge, do not exist in other creatures. We are the only beings that worry about what it is that we should be doing with our lives. Because of this, in my mind, it’s crucial to contemplate a visceral and biological milestone that we encounter, that being death.
Where are we?
All quotes from this point on are by the Roman Stoic philosopher, Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
The fear of death seems to be an innate one for most all human beings (except maybe psychopaths). Biology has an underlying drive to survive and procreate. If we face death, then our genetics do not move on. Because of this drive to survive, we tend to fear things that we think will bring us harm. The things that we believe will bring us harm are those that we do not perceive as having control over. Take flying versus driving a car. Many more people fear flying because the perceived level of personal power is much lower.
Like all things, depending on our level of fear, it can be healthy and beneficial. If our sense of fear generally diminishes or fades away, we will be driven to more impulsive and risky behaviors. If we start taking significant physical risks, we can easily be harmed or die. There is, of course, the opposite end of the spectrum, which is arguably worse. If we are always fearful and overwhelmed, then we will sit in our house afraid to go out and face the world. To live is to risk, to hide is to perish metaphorically. I’m wondering how much the fear of death comes into play when we cannot face the world. If we contemplate death, perhaps it will help us to overcome such a concern.
With human’s ability to abstractly reason and question many facets of life, there, of course, come unanswerable questions. Take, for example, some age-old curiosities of humankind around death. What is death? What happens after we die? Where do we go? Do we suffer, or is it pleasant? Are we reborn, or is it just nothing? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. All religions have attempted to answer these fundamental issues. The best solution that I’ve heard surrounding such unknowables is from a philosopher I enjoy named Alan Watts. When speaking of the question of death, he asks us a question. He asks, “what was it like before you were born?” This postulate, to me, makes sense. We don’t know what it was like before we were born, so why and how should we understand what it’s like after we pass?
Where do we want to go?
Now again, we, as humans, are faced with the dilemma of morals. That is to say, “what should I do?” If a predator is hungry in the forest, it merely hunts for prey. There is no question in the hunter’s mind of whether the hunted should survive much less any contemplation about the cruelty to another sentient being. The point here is the hunter simply kills, but it is not so when it comes to humans. We use philosophy and morals to answer these questions. Fredrich Nietzche suggests that all philosophy is a personal philosophy. His point here is that even if two people study the same philosophy and moral arguments, their conclusions will most likely differ even if only slightly due to the personal perspective of each being. Based on the differing conclusions that we draw, we will create different meanings. This notion seems to be how it is for the formation of our lives and what we should do with them. This assertion is not to say that everything is arbitrary and that we can do whatever we want. What is suggested is that we have a lot of freedom to create meanings that are beneficial to ourselves. By keeping in mind that life is finite, it makes sense that we will scrutinize the purposes that we create a bit more thoroughly. We all have a limited time on this pale blue dot. We will meet our maker. If we keep this at the forefront of our minds, we can leverage that to help drive us to do something meaningful.
As Jordan Peterson suggests, life is a series of trade-offs. We cannot choose not to make trade-offs. We can only choose which set to take on. Therefore, as the band Rush says, “If you choose not to decide. You still have made a choice.” The critical thing to recognize is there are no easy paths in life. Resisting, and looking away from responsibility is a much more difficult path than viewing it in the eye and taking it on. All problems start small, and thus solving them at that time is much more comfortable. Now, this is not to say that we will never fail or have problems. When we take action and fail, that is a miniature and symbolic death. The person that we were who failed had to die so that we could become what it is that we might be. This growth is painful but necessary.
How do we get from here to there?
When I can go into nature, time goes away, and my everyday goals no longer matter. I usually have a goal in mind when I am doing some outdoor activity such as hiking. Most times the goal is to summit a high mountain peak. When the plan is set, and I move into the forest with a friend or alone, that moment and the one goal are the only things that exist. I am out in the elements, in nature, surrounded by wildlife. When challenges come about and I am afraid, it’s an exhilarating feeling. Knowing that I could get hurt and be stranded alone in the forest makes my alertness and sense of aliveness come into full force. When I am out in the elements, the rawness makes me feel close to life, myself, nature and death. It’s not dead in a morbid sense but in one that looks a lot like a web. I can look around and see nature prospering, but it thrives on the continual death and decay of other organisms. I no longer feel afraid of dying, although it is not something that I am seeking out.
With all of that being said, how can we improve our lives not to be as afraid of death and to take on challenges that might be keeping us stricken with fear?
First and foremost, we need to take account of our time. In my mind, time is our most precious resource. We do not get this thing back, and many people try to take it from us every day. If we realize where our time is going and regain control, then we can leverage it to focus on things that we value. For example, because I appreciate going into nature and taking on difficult challenges there, I make sure to take such trips several times per year. When I return, I feel energized and ready to take on another day, even if it is not the most exciting or fulfilling work. It also helps me keep my mind focused on the fact that we are one step, one breath away from our last.
I like to think of death as the cessation of the formation of new memories about us or others. This notion helps me to keep my thoughts about it in the real world without assuming much. It also helps me when loved ones pass because it leaves the possibility in there that a small piece of them lives on through me and anyone with whom they interacted. We change those with whom we interact, and that change lasts long after someone’s death.
What does this journey mean?
Meditating on death seems beneficial to me. It seems to help us to orient in the world properly. Knowing that we are mortal and that our time here is limited helps to keep a sense of urgency on our life and the work to be done herein. I believe that we all have gifts to manifest and provide for others and society. It is our job, our duty to figure out through self-exploration what these gifts are and then to deliver them to make the world a better place.
Although we are not deer, it makes sense to me that we have much to learn from creatures like these and many others, such as dogs and cats. These animals spend their lives in the confines of the present moment. It seems to me as though many of these creatures experience a tremendous amount of joy throughout their lifetimes. Additionally, if something terrible happens to them, they suffer during the acute moment, but seconds later can yet again seem happy, or even blissful. Not all animals have no foresight, however. Something like a squirrel prepares for winter (the future) by storing nuts, but it does not seem as though such a forest-dwelling being worries about whether they’ve saved enough or not. They simply store as much as they can, and if there is not enough, they survive to the best of their ability because the alternative is to perish.