Spoiler Alert – you will die.
In 1973 Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for The Denial of Death. We’ve been denying for a while. The toss-up seems to be with the dual nature of our physical selves and our symbolic selves. And that comes down too, here we are… what does it mean? The search for meaning or the true nature of reality is good/absolute. It awakens the mind and that, my friends, is a connection to the present, which is wisdom.
They say our life flashes before our mind’s eye in our final days. Will yours be all scared and in denial about the fact that you will die? Or might we find meaning which has us present in our everyday lives?… with whatever is?
Why exactly are we so frightened of death that we avoid looking at it altogether? Or worse, we take all manner of measures to get more “dying days”.
Somewhere, deep down, we know we cannot avoid facing dying and death forever. Nothing is permanent and enduring.
When you are in denial, you’re trying to protect yourself by refusing to accept the truth about mortality.
When you are in denial, you’re trying to protect yourself by refusing to accept the truth about your dying and death that is happening. Refusing to acknowledge mortality is a way of coping with fear, stress, painful thoughts, conflict, threatening information and anxiety. You can be in denial about anything that makes you feel vulnerable or threatens your sense of control, such as dying. You can be in denial about something happening to you or to someone else.
When you’re in denial, you:
~ Will not acknowledge a difficult situation
~ Try not to face the facts
~ Downplay possible consequences of the matter.
Sometimes it seems as if the only real activity we are engaged in is closing our eyes to the truest fact about life: No one makes it out alive.