Although Thanatism unites us together in the real human dilemma we all share, I don’t want to minimize the fact that some relationships are hard and in fact cause real injury. Many of us have family members or friends, who because of their own fears or self-centeredness, make the lives of those who love them less fulfilling. One particularly unpleasant device such people use is guilt. Because our lives are in some way threatening to their preferred order of the world, they judge us and make us feel insecure about being who we are. Fortunately Thanatism provides us the tools to better understand and free ourselves from these judgments.
People, particularly people who haven’t come to terms with their mortality, often have hugely elaborate personal worlds they’ve built to obscure what their internal calculators clearly know. Because these worlds serve as defenses against their greatest fear, it’s only natural to expect them to defend these worlds vigorously. Worse, given that most of us develop these protective worlds privately, these worlds will naturally conflict with each other.
Having said that, understanding, although it may help to lessen the impact these judgments have, doesn’t fully free us from them. Fortunately, as Thanatists, we have another spiritual tool at our disposal, and that is understanding that when we die, ultimately we die alone. I don’t say this to minimize the effect that our deaths will have on those who love us. They will no doubt feel a great loss. For us, however, the loss is entirely different. We won’t feel great loss. We won’t feel anything at all. We simply won’t exist. At our death, all of our cares, everything that we’ve built into us, will vaporize instantly. Our death is no one’s but our own. No one, no matter how much they mean to us, will experience it with us. It is the ultimate moment of aloneness–where we and we alone will never be with anyone ever again.
This isn’t a particularly cheery proposition, but it does put limits on the power, particularly the negative power, others can exert on our lives. In some sense, because we know that we will ultimately die alone, we know that we alone are the ultimate judges of our lives. Others may disapprove of who we are, but thank you very much, this is our life and no one else’s in the end. Obviously, this shouldn’t be taken as carte blanche to be a selfish asshole (if for no other reason than such a disposition will lead us to miss out on the deep human need to genuinely relate with other people), but as I said, it does set limits on how much say anyone can have on who we are.
We’ve all felt the crippling effects that other people’s judgments can have or have seen the damage of judgement in the lives of others. There is perhaps no greater destroyer of joy in human relationships than people judging one another. It’s sickening to watch someone who is trapped between wanting to please a loved one and living life as they see fit. As Thanatists, however, we can see judgemental eyes as the blinders of self-centeredness that they are. We know that in the end, no one has a right to judge us but ourselves, and in such knowledge, we can free ourselves from the pain that judgement might otherwise cause.