As humans we tend to act on what is immediately in front of us. The further out the consequence of an action is, the less we seem to feel it viscerally. This can be seen in the different ways we market credit cards and insurance. Credit cards promise us something now (things and cash) with consequences that only follow later (payments with interest). Because of this, credit cards hardly need to be marketed at all. Now that the industry is saturated, there is competitive marketing, but Homo Sapiens need no convincing to spend money that they don’t currently have.
Insurance on the other hand promises just the opposite. With insurance, you spend money now for protection against calamity in the future. Because of this, there is a massive industry around insurance sales, so much so, that the insurance salesman has become the very archetype of the sales profession. In fact, insurance is such a counter-intuitive proposition for humans that auto and now medical insurance both have to be mandated by law to help us accept this very inhuman way of thinking.
Why we value the present so much more than the future isn’t entirely known, but I suspect there are at least two mechanisms. First, the parts of our brains that focus on immediate rewards are more ancient than the relatively new machinery that can reason out future consequences. This sets up a brain divided. Almost every human being has felt this internal conflict and experienced both the perils of losing this battle between now and later as well as the exultation of making a decision for our long-term benefit in spite of the current sacrifice required to achieve it.
Another less discussed reason, however, that we value immediate rewards more than those in the future is that the future-brain knows that one day, we the thinker, shall no longer be. In this way, the mental machinery that helps us deny this ultimate consequence also atrophies the extraordinarily valuable processes that help us resist superficial urges in order to achieve long-term goals.
Finally, no matter what we currently think we believe about death, we already know that death is coming for us. Our minds may be hard at work keeping us distracted, but somewhere our probability calculator has already done the math. Whether we want to believe it or not, our brains can’t help but know the truth, and by fleeing this reality, our brain taints every living moment with a sense of dread, the cause of which we can’t quite touch.
Addiction, procrastination, and anxiety–these are the hallmarks of a mind unwilling to look into the future. Although I’d love to tell you that, as a Thanatist, you will no longer feel this internal conflict and consistently and effortlessly make sacrifices in the present to facilitate future gain, sadly, even a core belief as powerful as the acceptance of our own mortality can’t free us entirely from one of the core conundrums of human existence. I can say, however, that by accepting death, and developing some of the practices we shall discuss later, you will develop a certain predisposition to think longer term. In doing so, Thanatism cleanses our thoughts of the uneasiness we can’t quite place, and enables us to more easily divert our ancient obsession with the immediate toward that which will ultimately make for a better life.
In the previous post, I explained how one of the great personal advantages of Thanatism is how it provides a solid core upon which to build the rest of our thinking. What makes Thanatism such a great core though? Is it uniquely so, or is it just one of many core beliefs we could have with similar effects? Although this is a work of faith and not epistemology, I think it’s important to discuss these things that make Thanatism uniquely well suited as the core of our thinking.
First, and as discussed earlier, Thanatism makes a fantastic core belief because of its statistical certainty. Very few phenomena have been observed as carefully and for as long as that of death. Throughout and even before history, humans have actively worked to evade death’s grasp, and yet no one has managed to do so.
Though this statistical certainty helps, many statistics have been used to tell untrue stories. The fact is, however, that although we as humans often make honest mistakes, more often than not, we defend untruths, not out of a lack of carefulness or precision, but rather through some moral failing. The most common of these “moral mistakes” is simply that we don’t want to admit we’re wrong.
There is perhaps nothing too meaningless that, having been spoken, we won’t defend until our dying breath. We’ve all felt this. We say something. Someone else challenges what we said. What follows is a tightness in our chests, a shortness of breath, and a firm resolve to defend our statement–with almost no consideration given as to whether or not it’s valid.
Thanatism defends against this moral failing, not because Thanatists are naturally virtuous, but rather because the truth at the core of Thanatism is one of the few truths that eviscerates our ego even more than being wrong. Although admitting that we’re wrong hurts our ego, knowing that we are but a temporal phenomena that shall soon pass without so much as making a ripple in the universe, or this planet, or even really in the lives of our loved ones for any length of time, hurts way more.
This brings us to a related moral mistake–that of “wishful thinking”. Many of the things we believe as humans have nothing to do with how well something conforms to our observations. We humans have an incredible willingness to suspend belief for something we want. How many young men have continued to pursue that special lady in spite of her obvious lack of interest? How many miles have been driven with the check engine light brightly displayed in the hope that it has illuminated in error? How many fortunes have been lost pursuing ventures that have spoken clearly of their impracticability from the start?
Thanatism guards against this wishful thinking simply because its core tenet is so awful. We’ve perhaps all had moments where the sweet release of death seems like something positive, but for the vast majority of humans, for the vast majority of their lives, the prospect of their own, inevitable non-existence is the exact opposite of what they want. Rather, this prospect is terrifying.
A core belief that is both consistent with our day-to-day observations of the world and yet equally destructive of the self–what a perfect foundation for human reason. As such, Thanatism provides us with a core belief that is not only statistically compelling, but one that also guards against the most common moral failings of belief. There may be other core beliefs that share its statistical certainty, but there aren’t many that are so personal. Nothing is quite as intimate as death. It tears at our attempts to self-aggrandize. It makes us turn away in terror like nothing else. As such, although not our favorite belief, in fact, for the very reason that it is our least favorite belief, death and with it Thanatism, serve as a unique core from which to build our lives.
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.
For creatures at the top of the food chain with no natural predators, humans certainly have a lot to worry about. Oh no! That person blew smoke in my direction! What if little Jimmy doesn’t get in the preschool of our choice? Oh, I hope the internet doesn’t spoil the season finale of my favorite show since I had to work tonight! What was I saying to my boss after my third glass of wine at the work party?!
These kinds of fears may seem almost comically trite, but in no small way, they erode our daily joy. We have greater fears as well. How will I provide for my family if I’m laid off? How am I going to find love as a 40-year-old divorceé? How am I going to make payroll this week? What’s this lump on my neck?
All of these fears are real and they can all cause us real pain should we realize their worst outcomes. Having said that, none of them compare with the fear of knowing that at some point in the future, everything that we are will be taken from us, at a time unknown to us, and without our consent. In this sense, once we’ve accepted death, that ultimate, inevitable object of our greatest fear, all others pale in comparison.
It’s not just that death outstrips these other day-to-day fears either. As a Thanatist, from the fundamental shift in our relationship with death that comes from our initial conversion, as well as from the daily practices that require us to meditate on our eventual end, we develop the habit of looking at what we fear rather than looking away from it. This habit of looking AT rather than AWAY turns anxiety into resolution.
Further, it’s been shown through multiple studies of game theory, that we humans fear the loss of what we have much more than we fear not gaining something we want. This fixation on protecting what we have is tied to the egoistic clinging to our own personal immortality projects. As we’ve learned already, Thanatism teaches us that these projects are already doomed to failure. We will never hold on to what we have or what we are. It will all come to an end some day. Our fear of loss dissolves, as our realization that loss is inevitable grows.
Finally, as Thanatists, we realize that we have but one life to live. We realize that this life won’t be redeemed at a later date, but is in fact, all that we have. Accepting this reality of life, gives us a certain steely resolution to act. We become less likely to make the decision not to decide. Rather, through our habit of looking clearly at that which we fear, we can commit to action more steadfastly.
I’m not saying that as a Thanatist you won’t have worries. You will. I’m not saying you won’t experience fear. You may feel it daily as you meditate on your personal end. What I am saying, however, is that you will develop a certain fearlessness about life. In the exact opposite way that teens YOLO away life because they don’t understand its value, as a Thanatist, you become so keenly aware of life’s value and yet at the same time of its ephemerality, that you can look into the void of that which you fear most, and with the full resoluteness of your being, act as a fully aware and fully committed human being should.
Dale Carnegie, in his seminal work, How to Make Friends and Influence People, discusses how it would be easier to meet new people if we only knew what they were thinking about. Fortunately, he tells us, we actually do know what other people are thinking about, for other people are thinking about the exact same thing that we’re thinking about–themselves.
This is the key to understanding humans–we’re always thinking about ourselves. No matter how smart or how dumb we might be, we are all experts in this one domain. Our expertise in this realm is vast too. We’re not only the sole authorities on larger topics like our beliefs and ambitions, we also spend a nearly inconceivable amount of mental energy on such riveting topics as, what do I want to eat this morning, what does my stool say about me, and why am I so tired right now?
This is one of the things that makes death so tragic for us. What we would quickly find out were we able to find out anything after death, is that even for those who have risen to public prominence, no one else cares about these topics of utmost importance to us quite like we do. Once we pass, we may get a day where friends and family come together to think about us. We may get a toast at holidays. We may even become the subject of a popular book or movie. Nonetheless, the days of any human spending even a fraction of their mental energy concerned about that crick in our neck, are gone forever.
Not only are we fantastic scholars of us, we are also unflinching advocates for ourselves. We are always at the ready to articulate how stupid other drivers are when compared with our own expertise behind the wheel. Nary a moment goes by while washing the dishes, that we don’t pause mentally to admire the way we so logically organize the dish rack. It’s hard to even imagine how others survive without our keen sense of how stupid the shit coming out of their mouths sounds.
Others are also wholly incapable of appreciating how hard we work and how selflessly we toil for the good of others. Worse, those we are closest to find it nigh impossible to understand how our thoughtless actions that cause them immense pain are actually fully justified under the circumstances, if they could only see things from our proper and just perspective. These all are the perfect machinations of the ego, and death, particularly the take on death we practice as Thanatists, has the uncanny ability to destroy this machinery at its lowest levels.
The faiths of old tended to prop up our egos not only with claims that our day-to-day concerns about our own well-being are of keen interest to the creator of a universe with billions of galaxies, each with billions of solar systems, many with planets situated in just about the same way that has enabled our own planet to generate billions of people just like us, but also, that that same creator desperately wants a relationship with us and upon supplication will gladly alter the otherwise intractable workings of this universe in our favor. Thanatism, on the other hand, teaches us that death doesn’t care about us at all.
In fact, death has some entirely other things to say about us. It tells us that everything we care about and everything that we are will soon be obliterated from this universe forever. Not only will we and our actions soon cease to exist, but any memory or thought another human being may have had about us, even those who are closest to us, our friends and our kin, will be wiped out in a matter of a few generations and mostly forgotten the moment we stop our daily advocation for ourselves.
In destroying our fantasies of immortality and self-importance, death gives us the opportunity to see that there is a world beyond us, full of billions of people whose lives are just as important as our own, and whose well-being will be impacted now and after we no longer exist by what we choose to do now. This moment of respite that death gives us from our incessant plotting about our own immediate material well-being and our strident justification of our own nearly spastic words and actions creates a space where we can actually pause and notice just how much our self-serving thoughts and actions themselves sow the seeds of everything we hate about ourselves, others, and the world we share.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that this kind of reflection on the lack of importance our daily concerns have for the other 8 billion inhabitants of the world and how destructive our myopic focus on our personal immortality project might be, is a perspective each of us could stand to spend a little more time meditating on. It’s a perspective that will help us better understand ourselves, open us up to our own failings, and is another way that embracing the teachings of death can make us into better people.
