I Deny that I am in Denial

I Deny that I am in Denial

Most especially I deny that I am in denial of death

Right now, watching the wildfire and drought news from the West, I feel like I am standing beside Nero as he watches Rome burn and playing his lyre [yes, I know this never happened] What disturbs me? He should be angry, but he is not. Is there anything I, as his bodyguard can do? No. Nothing. Helpless. I guess I could kill Nero [which his what soldiers eventually did do], but that wouldn’t save Rome. These days as I watch the news I feel like that helpless bodyguard of Nero watching Rome burn.

The plain truth is I am getting angry, as watching the world burn should. And yet, I know that just proclaiming to people: “Repent of your ways or else you will be cast out of the garden of Eden into the wilderness and suffer pain and death” will work as badly now as it worked in Old Testament times. The plain fact is that people, including me, just are not courageous enough to face the reality of death. Like children, we imagine it is not real. Or, it may happen to others, but not to me, because I am special. This fallacy seems to dominate just at the individual level, but also at the level of a society or civilization. Romans thought the empire was eternal. The British thought the same about their empire. The Americans still believe that Manifest Destiny means they cannot be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Well ladies and gentlemen, sorry to break it to you, but everything alive dies. Whether an ant or person or tree or planet like the Earth or a star like our Sun or even our Universe – everything dies. But in the meantime, if we are courageous enough to face that reality, life is sweet, oh so sweet. In fact, according to Pulitzer prize winning author E.Becker, life only truly becomes rich and vibrant when we face the reality of our death. It is our ability to ride this paradox which then allows to confront mortal dangers like Climate Change without flinching.

Although Becker himself died of cancer in the 1970s his idea live on, especially in the writings of Sheldon Solomon, a social psychologist at Skidmore College. Here is the link to several of his very recent youtube videos that explain several challenges of our society in terms of the denial of death concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3q49ac-Xo . When applying Becker’s ideas to the environment Sheldon says something that really resonated with me: the more we talk about how catastrophic and deadly the damage we do to the environment is [this includes the mass extinction, loss of soil, water shortages, reduced sperm count, etc.] the more people immerse themselves in consumption and having a good time to avoid facing this truth. In other words, because they are already in psychological state of the denial of death any news about death ensures that they will entrench themselves in their denial by increasing, not decreasing, their attachment to “living the good life now” – the future be damned. This psychological reality once again informs us that rational information and trying to get people to see “the truth” of what we are doing to destroy ourselves is counterproductive? So, what is the alternative? Well, to tell you the truth, I have not got to that part of the video yet, except to say Sheldon portrays life as a struggle where each of us is on a Hero’s journey. That means, be a hero! Be courageous!

Others discuss either waiting until something terrible happens to people personally so that change is no longer an option or showing people another way to live that is a positive choice. This means not harping about what is wrong, but rather focusing on what is right. What the path you take, one thing is for sure, denial ensures that our society self-destruction will accelerate. So, be a hero, take your head out of the sand, face your death and the death of our society bravely, and only then, can we live the good life – whatever the outcome.