Another powerful result of accepting death is the ability to live with integrity. When we describe someone as “having integrity,” we typically mean someone who’s a “stand-up” kind of person. This usage captures a piece of what I mean by living with integrity, but I’m really using it more in line with the root meaning of “integral” or “integrated”. For us Thanatists, living with integrity is simply about living without contradiction. It’s about getting to be the same us across a broad spectrum of social situations. It’s about letting our day-to-day actions flow naturally from what we believe at the core.
For most of us, our thoughts and actions have to go through a number of filters before we release them publicly. Since we are the immortal stars of our own play, how our audience perceives us is of the utmost importance. As Thanatists however, we know that the preservation of ourselves is a futile endeavor. Not only do we know that at some point in time, entirely not of our choosing, that death will abruptly end our project, we also know that each day, in some way, brings the previous day’s actor to a close. Because of this, we can speak exactly what we see, regardless of how it affects others’ perception of us.
It can hardly be overstated how much mental energy the unconscious filtering of ourselves takes. In fact, many anthropologists believe that the greatest advantage our enormous brains confer is not that of understanding the natural world, nor in the building of sophisticated tools, but rather in our ability to predict the social consequences of our actions and to filter them accordingly.
The brain is a zero-sum instrument, however. It only has so much processing power. When we eliminate a particular processing burden, it naturally transfers that processing energy elsewhere. A great example of this is the theory of “Getting Things Done”. In GTD, we’re encouraged to offload any thoughts of things we need to do onto a piece of software or paper. By doing so, we free the brain power normally used to juggle a list of priorities in our heads for other tasks. In the same way, by removing the brain’s need to filter our thoughts through the lens of self-preservation, we free massive amounts of brain power. It makes living and interacting with others feel effortless.
Not only does Thanatism reduce the pre-filtering load, but it also removes the need to create our positions and thoughts from scratch every time. When we lack the firm foundation of a well-defined core belief, our thinking has no soil to dig its roots into. All our thoughts are loosely connected and free-floating. Having a firm foundation gives our thoughts strength and purpose.
Even better, because Thanatism’s core belief is a product of our normal way of thinking about things, its conclusions about the world don’t feel artificial and defenseless. I was at one time a true believer in Christianity. As such, I enjoyed many of the same benefits of a firm core belief that Thanatism provides. The difference however, is that when I stepped outside of my social enclave of Christianity into what I would have described then as the “secular” world, my foundation crumbled.
My faith demanded that I speak with others frankly about it because a core tenant of that faith was that should others fail to accept it, they were damned. This internal conflict, however, created moments of unimaginable cringe, moments where I was forced to say things that, at some fundamental level, felt wrong. I feel no such pangs with Thanatism though. What now flows from my core does so naturally and without fear because at the core of my being is a courageous acceptance of what is true for all of us, and its fruits bear the same character.
The importance and power of having a core belief that is both defined and objective is hard to fully articulate unless you’ve experienced it. There is no shame. There is no worry. There is no flailing around in an effort to create thoughts ex nihilo. The core belief that we shall one day no longer be serves as a simple yet powerful foundation for our thinking and a litany of beliefs. Acting from a core free of self-interest feels incredibly liberating. Your interests are aligned with that of every human, and the simplicity and integrity of your thoughts, speech, and actions frees you to join the human project fully and without fear.