Become a Hero: Transform Your Fear and Denial of Death into Pure Joy

Become a Hero: Transform Your Fear and Denial of Death into Pure Joy

Is Our Denial of Death Causing us to Enjoy Life Less?

An exploration of how to preserve our mental health during Covid-19

We all want to be a hero. And, in fact, we all can be heroes. Here is how.

First, and toughest, admit that you are going to die. Then, find a “project” that continues to bring  life to the world after you are gone, without turning others into “the enemy”. Live every day as a blessing. Be joyful and laugh a lot.

Every day the news is full of death. This exploration of how we preserve our mental health after suffering through over 1 year of the Covid-19 Pandemic is really about joy, although, paradoxically, it is an exploration of our response to death. Death is clearly not a joyful topic, however, we are bombarded with news of death every day and must transform into joy. How? If we do not hear of deaths form Covid, there are articles about the death of the myth of progress & the American Dream, the death of our societal norms [ie. Rather than male/female the current view is that there are 64 genders], the death of our stable climate, and of course the penultimate death – the 6^th mass extinction which most of us refuse to admit to. Denial is our normal response to all this death. Quite frankly it makes sense to deny these realities because they are overwhelming. However, denial, while an understandable phase, is not a helpful psychological state to remain in if the goal is to live a life worth living. Rather, I propose that we smile like the baby pictured  below, who radiates pure joy. She is really living, but, how do we recapture that state of being as adults?

While pondering this question I started rereading the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book “The Denial of Death” by Ernest Becker. This seemingly macabre book is actually a celebration of life. However, the joy life has in store for us is only possible when, and only when, we realize that death awaits us all. And by all he means all: individuals, families, communities, countries, civilizations, planets, solar systems, and even our Universe. To live is to die. Of course we all want to live forever. A rock never dies, because it never lived. So, in a strange way, we are truly alive when we know, deep in our souls, that we are going to die. This brutal honesty gives life its sweetness, its poignancy, its inherent joy its ecstasy. Gold is only valuable because it is in short supply. Likewise, life is sweet because it is so transitory.

Better a beggar on earth than a prince in the realm of shades. Homer, The Odyssey

Here is Becker’s basic premise. Our terror of death is the root motivation for individual behavior, and this terror permeates our social and cultural life. Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion & politics) is a wellspring for the violence and misery in the world caused by wars, genocide, racism, nationalism, and so forth, since immortality projects that contradicts one another threaten one’s core beliefs and sense of security. However, we cannot escape some form of “immortality project” [or hero’s journey, a similar search for transcendence at an individual level], as we need some to defend ourselves from the grotesque fact of death. Thus, the basic premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of mortality. Since human beings have a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we can transcend the dilemma of mortality through heroism, a concept involving the symbolic half. Becker describes human pursuit of “immortality projects”, in which an we create or become part of something that we feel will outlast our time on earth. In doing so, we feel that we become heroic and part of something eternal that will never die, compared to the physical body that will eventually die. This gives human beings the belief that our lives have meaning, purpose, and significance in the grand scheme of things. Still, for Becker, the only suitable source of meaning is transcendent, cosmic energy, divine purpose. But I don’t think one can be a hero in any really elevating sense without some transcendental referent like being a hero for God, or for the creative powers of the universe. The most exalted type of heroism involves feeling that one has lived to some purpose that transcends oneself. This is why religion gives him the validation that nothing else gives him. … When you finally break through your character armor and discover your vulnerability, it becomes impossible to live without massive anxiety unless you find a new power source. And this is where the idea of God comes in (Keen 1974). From this premise, mental illness is most insightfully extrapolated as a difficulty in one’s hero system(s). When someone experiences depression, their  heroism project is failing, and they are being constantly reminded of their mortality and insignificance as a result. Schizophrenia is a step further than depression in which one’s causa sui falls apart, making it impossible to engender sufficient defense mechanisms against their mortality. Thus, schizophrenics must create their own realities in which they are better heroes. Becker also made the point that humankind’s traditional “hero-systems,” including religion, or are no longer convincing in the age of reason. Becker never believes that science can solve the human problem. He declares that people need new convincing “illusions” that enable them to feel heroic in the grand scheme of things, a form of symbolic immortality. However, he provided no definitive answer, mainly because he believed that no perfect solution exists. https://ernestbecker.org/about-becker/beckers-synthesis/

So, how can you be a hero? What illusion can you create to bring joy, and thus be mentally healthy? How can you be as filled with the joy of living as this baby?  I am not saying that we need to find “religion” in the traditional sense, but we all, and of course I include myself, must grapple with making ourselves into heroes and become part of some bigger story. We all, to preserve our sanity in the face of death and the never-ending lockdowns, need to put ourselves on a journey to see life for what it is: the greatest of gifts, one worth an infinite amount of gold, where each moment is ecstasy, even, and especially, on rainy days like today when I am writing these words. Be vulnerable. Avoid perfection. Help others. Be humble. Be courageous. And smile and laugh a lot.