In another movie of my youth (once again, the title of which I haven’t been able to definitively discover), there’s a scene where the hero meets a clan of centaurs. In the scene, the centaurs explain how they made a deal with the gods that would enable them to see the future. After they had completed their end of the bargain though, the gods tricked them. The gods gave them the ability to see the future, but the only part of the future they could see was the exact nature of their own deaths.
I don’t know why this scene stuck with me, but I wonder if humanity wasn’t subject to a similar trick. One of the greatest gifts we possess as humans is our ability to reason. Given a current set of circumstances, we have become masters at reasoning out how the future will play out. This ability has obviously conferred a tremendous evolutionary advantage to us, as by reasoning out the repercussions of numerous potential actions, we can choose the action that leads to our desired outcome.
I’d like us to think back, however, to the first creatures to think about the future in this way. You can imagine that at first it seemed like the greatest gift ever given. At some point however, that gift gave us an insight about ourselves. As we witnessed the aging and eventual deaths of those around us, there must have been that first moment of insight about our own future–if all of the others decline as they get older and eventually die, that means that I too shall someday die.
Imagine the first creature who realized the ultimate and ultimately personal consequence of their reasoning–I too shall die. There had to be a first moment, the first thinking being of its kind to realize that it would one day end. I wonder what that realization did to that creature? Was it able to continue as it had before, or did this realization stop it in its tracks? Did it make it depressed? Was it higher functioning after this realization, or did it despair that its greatest gift, the ability to see the future, had made its very existence untenable?
The fact is that reason is a double-edged sword. It can help us control the future, but it also shows us likely future outcomes beyond our control that we’d much prefer not know about. This tendency for humans to deny unpleasant realities isn’t limited just to death either. I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life. As such, I’ve often been asked to mentor younger entrepreneurs. When doing so, I’m often asked what one thing an entrepreneur can do in order to most ensure their success.
My answer is almost always the same–look at that thing you’re currently too afraid to look at. Look at the thing that keeps you up at night. Stop worrying about this minor design decision or your latest marketing copy, and look at the issue you already know about that will destroy your business. Usually this issue is painfully obvious. If they were looking at anyone else’s company, they would see it immediately. When it comes to their own company however, they’re blind. And it’s not a normal kind of blindness either–it’s a blindness born from fear. When they finally name that which they most fear, however, like a thorn being removed, I can feel the discomfort, but I can also feel the overwhelming relief.
Amazingly though, the clarity rarely lasts. Most entrepreneurs will find a way to bury the seed of their own destruction again and again. They’ll rationalize the obvious untenability of their company because they can’t stand the idea of having to quit or start again. A few, however, have the courage to look steadily at their fear and act. Those are the real entrepreneurs. They are the ones who ultimately win.
When I look at how natural it was for me as a child to forget my first encounter with death, when I see the statistics on how many people believe in an afterlife, when I see brilliant entrepreneurs fail to see that which will destroy them, I have to conclude that a powerful brain function has evolved to facilitate these contradictions. And that’s what I mean by “denial by design”. We’ve evolved to deny the natural conclusions of our reason when it tells us something painful.
Now some of you may note that if our brains have developed this function, it must confer some selective advantage, so perhaps we should leave well-enough alone. Maybe. But I would argue that the power of a real faith, the kind of faith that has transformed us in the past, lies in its ability to overcome human nature. Kindness isn’t natural. Forgiveness isn’t natural. Delayed gratification isn’t natural. We’ve had to fight our base instincts, often through faiths, to evolve.
And just like the faiths of old have enabled us to become more than our natural selves, so too do I believe that Thanatism–the purposeful acceptance of our own deaths–can help us evolve into something better than we currently are. We’ll discuss this more later, but rest assured–Thanatism is not an impotent faith–just the opposite. It may grant us a gift most of us currently lack, and that gift may be our salvation.
Many faiths try to minimize the tragedy of death. That’s not fair though. In fact, death is perhaps life’s greatest tragedy. Life isn’t easy. It takes work to build a life. None of us gets to decide whether we exist or not. By the time we even understand existence, we are already here. Once we understand our predicament–the predicament of being alive–we’re already involved in the day-to-day grind of building a life we can be proud of or, at the very least, survive. Day after day, we wake and we struggle to become. We work to move forward, to learn, and to grow. And then, suddenly, without our consent, that project terminates.
Death doesn’t just destroy me though. It destroys everyone. In this way, death isn’t only the end of my personal project; it is also the loss of love. There’s nothing we value more in life than our connections with each other. The love we feel for a parent or a child or a friend is in no small way what gives our lives meaning. Death doesn’t just come for us though–it comes for the objects of our love as well. Every human, no matter how undeserving, no matter how innocent, no matter how loved, will someday end. Death is the end of all those we value most.
Finally, death isn’t just an unfitting end to a lifetime of struggle and those we love. It is also permanent and irreversible. This is perhaps the aspect of death that crushed me most when I was a child. In the Disney movie, it wasn’t just that two friends were no longer friends. It was that their friendship and everything they’d built together were gone forever.
With death, there is no re-do. We don’t get to take everything we’ve learned and apply it to our next struggle. We don’t get to see how our life’s work affects the future and consider what we could have done better or enjoy the fruits of our labor. With death, there is no tomorrow. When we reach our end, that’s it. Death isn’t only non-existence. It’s not only the end. It’s the end forever, and that finality is hard to bear.
Looking back at that simple story of a child who first discovered the tragedy of death from a Disney movie gives us our first reason why we deny death. We deny death because it is the greatest tragedy that can befall any of us. It’s the end of a life’s worth of work. It’s the end of our loved ones. And perhaps worst of all, it’s an end with no beginning–the end of my story forever.
Although our consensus that everyone, so far, has died, sets the beginnings of a universal foundation for Thanatism, if we’re being fair, we must acknowledge that most disagreements about death don’t revolve around whether we die, but rather, what happens to us after we die. As promised, Thanatism won’t ever ask us to use any reasoning that differs from the same reasoning we’d use to make any other important decision, so accordingly, I’d like us to begin the discussion of what happens after we die simply by observing death.
The first thing that makes us suspect something has died (and this by the way, goes for humans, animals, cars, computers, or anything else) is that it stops functioning the way it used to. For humans, we often first suspect a person is dead because they no longer “work”. The person no longer talks, moves, or responds to any stimulus at all. This is the first thing that I think we can all agree happens after we die–we become 100% non-functional.
Of course, we’re all familiar with human states where we stop functioning but aren’t actually dead. Physical or chemical trauma to the brain or central nervous system can prevent us from responding as we typically would. A couple of things separate these non-dead states from death however. The first way to check if a person is dead or just incapacitated are those functions that don’t require conscious action by the possibly dead person, namely breathing and a heartbeat. If these two things seem to be functioning normally, the person isn’t dead. If, however, their heart no longer functions and they are no longer breathing, we begin to suspect the person may be dead. This is the second thing we can agree about us after death–even those functions that are unconscious stop.
This isn’t the definitive test yet though. There have been times in the past where, through some mechanical work like CPR or defibrillation, we can sometimes get a person working again. Although we sometimes refer to the person as “having died”, if they start working again, they are no longer dead. This is the third thing that our ordinary senses tell us happens after death–we stop working permanently.
Now to be fair, we can’t really say this non-functionality is permanent since we haven’t experienced the entirety of the future yet, and it’s technically possible that all these non-functioning humans will start working again at some later date. There are a few things that we can observe, however, that make us doubt this future return to full functionality. First, enzymes begin to break down our cells, which produces gases that fill our body cavities. The next thing this process does is it breaks down our capillaries. This releases the blood that used to be in our veins turning a person varying colors of dead. Finally our muscles stiffen as they run out of oxygen, making our once supple selves stiff.
At this stage there are actually a couple of things that can confuse us though. Occasionally, a person, even if totally dead, will twitch a few times. If this twitching continues indefinitely, the person may actually be alive and we should investigate further. If they are truly dead, however, they will eventually stop twitching. Further, it can appear during this time that our hair and fingernails grow. Growth is a sure sign of life. Unfortunately, this is most often just an illusion. What’s actually happening is that our skin is retracting and therefore exposing more of our nails and hair.
From this point, microorganisms continue to feed, as will any larger carnivores that have access to the body. If the dead person is buried in normal soil, they’ll be reduced to bones in about 8-10 years. Depending on the environment, however, bones can last a REALLY long time. We think we’ve found bones that have lasted up to 300,000 years, but most bones turn to dust well within this time period. A few lucky bones get turned into fossils. Contrary to popular belief, these aren’t actually bones anymore. Fossilization occurs when the organic materials of the bone cells (blood cells, collagen, and fat) dissolve, leaving only a fragile calcium lattice in the shape of the bone. Eventually other minerals fill this lattice, and after about 10,000 years, we get a bone-shaped rock, which we call a fossil.
So what happens after we die? We first stop working. We then get bloated, discolored, and stiff. We then, occasionally do a couple of spooky things like twitch and appear to grow. Ultimately though, we get eaten and eventually dissolve into dust or a bone shaped rock. So far, none of these minerals or bone-shaped rocks have regained their previous form or abilities–not a single one. All of this sets a pretty firm foundation for Thanatism’s claim that death is the end of each of us forever.
One of the reasons I chose death as the object of our new faith is it’s obviousness. In other words, I don’t believe the people of today’s world are willing to put a belief at the center of their being that contradicts their ordinary way of assessing reality. To begin to understand how death meets this test, let’s first look at some statistics about death.
The number of people who have lived on this earth varies depending on what you count as human and your statistical methodology, but in general, we believe about 100 billion people have been born. Regardless of your methodology, however, or even your religious faith, everyone agrees that no one on our planet born before the 20th century still walks this earth. That’s an incredible statistic. No one. Over 90 billion lives and zero survivors.
Let’s consider a few notable deaths. Methuselah, by some accounts lived a long time–end result–dead. Moses–dead before he even got to the promised land. The pharaohs–mummies, but not alive. The Caesars–all dead. Jesus–crucified and died (by some historical accounts, he came back for a bit and may come back again, but he’s currently not walking among us). Siddhartha, the original Buddha, ate some bad mushrooms and died. Muhammad–died of a fever. Sir Isaac Newton–survived the apple, died in his sleep. Einstein–died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and although Thomas Harvey did remove his brain against Einstein’s wishes, he quickly proved that brains don’t work without the rest of the body.
In the world today, it seems sometimes that no one agrees about anything. Isn’t it astonishing then that with all of our different belief systems, with all of our strategies to elude death, that no amount of wealth, no god, no belief, and no science has ever managed to keep a human alive much past 100 years? Amazingly, no one even makes that claim. Everyone agrees that everyone born before the 20th century is now dead.
That’s the first thing that makes Thanatism so special–its universality. The core premise, that you, as a human, will someday die is something that we can all believe in. Why is this so important? Well, we’ll go into greater depth later when we discuss how Thantatism affects our relationship with society, but the fact is, we humans need a core belief we can ALL believe in. If we all start with differing core beliefs, there is no chance for us to all agree on the conclusions. In fact, if we can’t start with a common core belief, we can’t really even have a meaningful discussion.
This doesn’t mean that we’ll all agree about everything as Thanatists. I don’t even think we’d want that as humans. What it does mean, however, is that we can all start in the same place, and if we can do that, we can at least have a conversation about where we go from there. Thanatism is a unique faith because it’s the only faith where its core premise is so obvious, so utterly banal, that it has a chance, no matter how small, to unite humanity.
To better understand our denial of death, I want to step back and look at the first time I experienced death as a child. When we’re born, we of course, don’t have a relationship with death. Soon however, we begin to talk and explore our world. In these early days, we’re usually so busy exploring this new experience of being alive, we don’t even think about our beginning or our end. At some point, however–and according to most psychologists it’s usually by the time we’re five–we encounter something in our world that teaches us about death.
For me, prosaically enough, it was a Disney movie. In spite of a fair amount of research, I haven’t been able to definitively identify it, but I know the basics. It was a live-action movie about two young animals (a wolf and a bear in my memory) who both get separated from their families. The movie then shows their adventures together as they learn to survive in the world and become best friends.
The part that affected me was toward the end of the movie after all their adventures had reunited them with their respective families. The final scene shows the bear and wolf many years later as they happen to cross paths along the same river where they’d met. As they did so, the narrator said, “In spite of all of their adventures together, they didn’t even recognize each other as they passed by”.
I remember thinking that they would never know each other again. It was as if all those adventures and the real love they had felt for each other had never existed at all. I was a very happy-go-lucky kid, but I remember going up into my bedroom, going into my closet and weeping harder than I ever have since. I remember crying until I was emotionally exhausted and then I’d think about the eternal loss of friendship the movie portrayed and an ache would resurface in my chest and I’d start sobbing again.
I feel like I spent hours up there crying until my mom eventually found me. Although I had a good relationship with her, there was something about what I was feeling that made me not want to explain why I was there. The only other thing I remember about this incident is that sometime later I took a piece of tar from outside and scribbled against the closet wall that I was leaning against when I was crying. They were dark, angry scribbles, almost as if I was trying to destroy what I’d learned.
Although nothing died in the film, what I was experiencing was the realization that through life, we lose our past selves. In other words, it’s not only that death is the end of everything we have ever been, death actually takes its toll throughout our lives as relationships and cares that used to define us, slip away into nothingness long before we die. I had a best friend at that time, and the thought of that relationship ending–never to be again–killed me. My sorrow didn’t last long though. I didn’t talk to my parents about it. I didn’t talk to my friend. Strangely, I don’t even remember thinking much about it again. Somehow, without any intent on my part, I just pushed it away.
What can we learn from this simple encounter with death? What does it tell us about how or why we deny death? Three things strike me immediately: death is tragic, our denial is instinctual, and our fear is deeply personal. Each of these aspects of our denial of death deserves more consideration, so I’ll be spending the next three posts exploring each in greater detail.
After Jesus told a crowd of his disciples that they had to partake of his flesh and blood to receive eternal life, many of them responded by saying “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” It was a hard teaching, but I want to warn anyone who’s thinking about reading further that Thanatism is much harder. Although Christianity may require an extraordinary leap of faith before one can participate in eternal life, at least there is SOME way to get there. Thanatism offers no such assurances. In fact, just the opposite.
It asks us to personally accept that we are dying. There is good reason that most of us choose not to live daily with this acceptance–our personal and collective mortality is the saddest truth of life. It means knowing that everything we have been, are, or could be, at some point in the future, will be vaporized in an instant–forever. I will also explain ways to make death present, and I assure you, no matter how prepared you are, having death that present will hurt. Ultimately I believe that burying what we already know about death hurts more, but it’s more of a gradual ache. Making death present can drive you to your knees.
Conversion–that is the reworking of your world view from a new core belief–can also be hugely disorienting, and the realities that Thanatism asks us accept make that reworking all the more challenging. Because of that, Thanatism isn’t for everyone. So just be careful when reading this. I believe I’ve come through the other side a stronger person, but I have no proof that my experience is typical. I in no way want to cause anyone real harm. If it seems like too much, stop reading. And if it’s still too much, visit us at thanatism.org, and we’ll do what we can to help.
Before you commit to reading further, I also want to give you a sense of how we’re going to proceed. I’ve divided what follows into 4 sections. The first three of these explore how Thanatism can help us better relate to ourselves, then others, and finally to our society as a whole. We’ll spend most of the next year exploring these relationships, as Thanatism’s ability to make us better, both individually and collectively, is what makes Thanatism a faith worth exploring. The final section proposes some concrete practices that will help us instantiate our new-found belief into our day-to-day lives and into society as a whole.
I hope that you’re able to overcome the audacity of this project to move forward. I fully understand how any claim of a new faith must sound. I understand how weary we’ve all become of the notion of faith itself. There is something real in what follows though, and if you continue to the end, I won’t promise that you’ll be a new person ready to change the world, but I can promise that you’ll have read something interesting, and that by some miracle, well beyond my skills to express it, what follows might just be a key to unlocking a future that we all very much want and deserve.
