One of the key distinctions during our maturation is that we perceive the concept of infinity.
Shortly after that, we come to a full realization of the finality and uncertainty of death.
Everything made pointless
Death itself is no small thing. Even in a secularized society, we always wrestle at least somewhat with the concept.
It’s a monumental reality that creates some severe truths:
- At some point, in the future, your body will fail.
- Everyone else’s body will fail as well, too.
- This can happen any time, no matter how well you eat, exercise, or maintain your health.
- We must live with something someone else told us about anything that happens to our “soul” after that.
Coping with it
Naturally, this is depressing. If you know you will die someday, everything you’re doing now doesn’t matter so much:
- Aspiring for more money, such as a career, isn’t that important.
- Building popularity and influence (e.g., social media) is fleeting.
- Recreational activities are hollow distractions.
- Every single friendship is another avenue for pain, since they or you will die.
We may make a religious conclusion, but it doesn’t really affect the practical aspects of daily life.
To self-protect from the misery of our death, we put it out of our minds.
- The alternative is worse: sit in a state of anxiety about managing risks every day to avoid death.
Badly coping
However, we never really do a perfect job of putting it out of our minds.
Avoiding death develops symbolic aversions that become near-human universals.
- Anything connected with a more rapid death, such as a disease, is taboo.
- In fact, things that spread disease, like rats and feces, are also taboo.
- We tend to reject the natural effects of aging.
- Even when it’s a harmless job change or moving, we treat losing a friendship as a type of death.
We even frame our philosophies around whatever maximizes the duration of life.
- We prioritize the worst crimes toward who causes death more than who causes the most suffering to the most people.
- Most thought experiments intuitively skew toward preserving more time for people (e.g., prioritize saving an infant over an elderly person).
Badly acting
Further, our preoccupation with death creates further expectations within our daily routines:
- The experiences with our life stages mostly frame around the fact that we will eventually die.
- With all things equal, people will prioritize rapid and uncomfortable transportation over a leisurely and slow ride.
- At the extreme, every moment either gratifies another fulfillment, or increases exposure to never getting where we want to be.
Mortality is certain, but not when, so we severely discount how much our long-term patience is worth a reward.
- We naturally look to the next day or week, and not to what may happen in the next ten years.
- Budgeting is extremely difficult, since money doesn’t go with us when we die.
- Every single journey may terminate suddenly, so we prioritize the destination more than the pathway to it.
- Instead of building high-quality projects, our efforts must be merely “good enough”. The diminishing returns and scarcity of time give little value in higher-quality results.
This death-based reality has political implications as well.
- The dominant thing stopping most criminal activity is that governments have public consent to kill people who break the law.
- Even without the death penalty, governments take someone’s time when they don’t outright kill them (i.e., incarceration).
Finding stability
Given its guarantees, finality, and ubiquity, it’s amazing how much we don’t talk about death.
- This is somewhat intentional, since we want to avoid the uncomfortable feelings that creep into our presence with the discussion.
- In fact, avoidance is why many people highly preoccupy themselves with small talk.
Often, we’ll live out most of our lives knowing we’ll die, but will avoid addressing it until we have to.
The poetry of existence, however, screams death to us.
- All artistic works keenly capture the human condition, but must always acknowledge death.
- Even the most light-hearted comedies and children’s entertainment still always contain one nod to death’s finality.
- For any emotional impact, both tragedy and sorrow require death’s presence.
We must accept it
To make this point clearer, imagine the world we live in, but where death didn’t exist:
- The passage of time wouldn’t cause anxiety or concern, since it wouldn’t decrement to a pivotal moment.
- Moral decisions wouldn’t hit nearly as hard, since any incapacitation without killing means those people would return.
- Since breaking rules wouldn’t cause permanent destruction, they wouldn’t matter nearly as much.
In fact, the absence of death would make most conflicts lose most of their significance.
- All forms of pain inflicted upon others could be indemnified by an “eye for an eye” Talionic justice.
- No matter how heated or protracted, political battles would be as serious as two children fighting on a playground.
- There would be no religion, since there would be no “after” to this life.
In summary, death binds us to significance and crafts our daily lives, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
There is merit to accepting and working with this fact. History’s most influential names were more concerned about their inner spirituality and legacy than their daily concerns.
Of course, it’s not necessary to address, at least not now. We all will, though. It’ll either be slowly, during the final Erickson stage, or suddenly when religion isn’t a matter of faith anymore.