Does trying to save the world mean having to embrace death?

Hard-earned Insights from a World Expert at Failing to Save the World

Pondering death with all its tentacles (Source: www.releaseyourkraken.com)

Thank you for inspiring me with this Writers Challenge to finally start writing on Medium. I have been threatening myself to start doing so for quite some time, but didn’t know where to start. I don’t know why I started with an essay inspired by the death hashtag, but I’m quite glad that I did. It has taken me down a wondrous route considering fatality in its many forms and how it affects my life. I seem to have come full circle — I had convinced myself that I did not fear death at all. Now I can see how much trauma and loss has contributed to viewing my life and the world around me through a constant ‘death prism’. And it ended up with the realisation that I was finally able to embrace death as a part of my life’s journey. So thank you for that as well, Medium Team. Writing as therapy might just work!

Embracing Death

Embracing death as a natural part of life isn’t easy. It is much easier to get carried away by the grief or the drama or the nihilism of it all. Sometimes my persistent and lifelong drive to ‘save the world’ feels like an actual death wish. Having to save the world after all means that you believe that it is dying. And that your noble sacrifice is the last Hail Mary that can stop that from happening. World saviourism is a form of martyrdom, for sure.

Writing this essay, I also realised that I have also completely surrounded myself with death. My house is full of skulls and dead things. It looks like a mixture of a Victorian museum and a Voodoo hut — with a solid dose of Cthulhu cult sprinkled through everything. My wardrobe and jewellery is at least 60% skulls, animal print or tentacles. Most of the photos I have on display are of dead loved ones (human and animal). My bookshelf is full of serial killer and forensic psychology books. My freezer has the polydactyl paws of my favourite (dead) cat waiting to be taxidermied. Or buried. Or regularly cried over. Death has a way of freezing your decisions, especially around lost loved ones.

Hanging out in my death lair with a friend (Photograph: Ross Giblin / Stuff)

My friends and family certainly know me as someone who’s pretty morbid. Though I wonder if society’s definition of morbid as “an abnormal and unhealthy interest in disturbing and unpleasant subjects, especially death and disease” isn’t a bit unfair. Death is just another part of life after all, and I am, as a biologist, a student of life. My mother, however, remains unconvinced that I’m not a Satanist.

I have always had this morbid attraction to death. Not (usually) because I wanted to die, although I have had my periods suffering severe depression with the associated suicidal ideation. It could just be because I’m Austrian. Though I did also have a ridiculous amount of near-death experiences, especially when I was younger — 18 before the age of 30! These happened partly due to recklessness, partly because I was seeking attention from parents who didn’t want to or couldn’t give it, and partly because I’m pretty clumsy. I seemed to care little about risk and consequences. Could be the toxoplasmosis from owning and breeding giant thumb-cats. Could be because I actually don’t fear my own death. Only that of others.

I have also lost many loved ones — some to untimely, self-inflicted and criminal deaths. Not all were tragic, but many were. During my difficult twenties (more on that below), I lost one close relative or friend every single year. That was awful. But it also gave me some perspective and coping mechanisms when dealing with the death of loved ones. Otherwise, I would have drowned in my compounding grief.

Looking Through the Death Prism

‘Dealing with death’ does however mean that I view everything I see or think about through a morbid death prism. “Look at this beautiful sunset!” becomes, in my mind: “I am looking at Australia incinerating a billion wild animals because of the climate catastrophe.” “What a privilege to dive on such a stunning coral reef!” immediately turns into: “We may be the last generation to do so — when I was younger, there were 50% more corals on this reef.” “Let’s get Indian for takeaway!” morphs into: “I am participating in the mass slaughter of goats, even though I know they are pests here, and thus OK to eat.” “I love our puppy so much!” turns into my worst fear of: “But he will die in 10 years or so, and I will want to die with him.” “What a fun party!” in my mind turns into: “We are all going to die because of the pandemic / climate change / the 6th mass extinction.” Because I am an extremely extroverted thinker, more often than not I end up voicing my internal death prism monologues. This makes me a highly endearing party guest.

So, for me, what may be even worse than losing loved ones is this death prism that makes me see everything through a fatalistic lens. I see it everywhere, all the time — from the death of the human experiment to the mass extinction of all life. On the one hand, that grief feels not as acute and brutal as an actual death of a loved one. On the other hand, it is utterly, mind-blowingly vast, even infinite to comprehend. And it is constant. It doesn’t let up, at least not when I’m sober.

Most people don’t view the world around them through a death prism. Because it is too depressing, and they’d feel completely overwhelmed. I cannot look away from this overwhelming obliteration of all that I know and love. Because I am incurably addicted to saving the world. And failing. Again and again and again. And that brings a new kind of death to deal with every time it happens. I’m not sure if it’s masochism or madness. But it is my reality.

Not only is the flip side of world saviourism viewing everything through the death prism, this way of living often ends in pretty bad consequences for myself (triggering recurring complex PTSD for one), my relationships, my reputation… and minimal, if any, benefits to Papatūānuku. I seem to have stubbornly stuck with the false Einstein quote — “Failure is success in progress” — instead of “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. ‘Incredible tenacity’ is what kind souls have called this special feature of mine. ‘Pigheadedness to the point of driving myself insane’ is probably more accurate.

I’m trying to get over that addiction, and this set of essays is part of this journey. So please, bear with me as my story gets convoluted. Unraveling your relationship with death is like trying to understand trauma brain. It’s complex, crippled, and compounded by layers of traumas, triggers, grief and grievances. It’s sometimes embarrassing, often painful, always deeply illuminating, and hopefully worth it in hindsight.

How World Saviourism Turned Dark

After this heavy prologue, it’s high time to introduce myself: Kia ora. I’m Dr Sea, a ‘sea doctor’, or at least that’s what I spent 10+ years and >$200K in university fees on becoming. But I never ended up working as a marine biologist. That was the first death along my journey of world saviourism. That one hurt a lot. It was the death of my youthful idealism and my lifelong dreams of what I always saw myself as becoming when I grew up.

My dream of moving across the world from a landlocked country to become a marine biologist didn’t die because I’m a quitter. Or because I stopped loving coral reefs. Or because I suddenly decided to become a capitalist when I hit 30. Let’s face it, you don’t become a marine biologist - or any life scientist for that matter - for the money!

The ‘simple’ reason is: I fell in love with a guy who was interviewed on the Lord of the Rings DVD extras. My trauma brain decided instantly that he was my soul mate. And so I stalked him to Aotearoa New Zealand for the Return of the King premier. And… long story short, I ended up marrying him! There are no tropical coral reefs this far south in the Pacific. Thus, 10+ years of becoming an expert in that field went down the tube, more or less. For love — or self-delusion, it’s hard to say in hindsight. Yes, that marriage was another death of a dream, although it does make for a really great story.

A photo taken during my fateful first trip to Aotearoa in 2003.

There is a more complex reason why I’m not working in the field I have a PhD in. It is also a lot more painful, and a much less fun story than being a successful elf stalker. It starts with me moving halfway across the world from Austria to Australia, at age 20. I was powered by all the idealism a fledgling world saviour can muster. I rode high on fulfilling my dreams, and fleeing this landlocked hell hole. And I immediately crashed into deadly reality.

In my case, it was the crusher of young souls that is academia. As close to a death cult as anything H.P. Lovecraft — or the GOP — could dream up. Within weeks of my arrival, I learned that the University I had been idolising as the greatest place to become an ocean-saving marine biologist in was also killing a tonne of marine life. All in the name of ‘science’. Witnessing the literal torturous death of tens of thousands of sea creatures by the organisation I left my home, my family and my inheritance for left me thoroughly traumatised.

A part of field research for us undergraduate students included poisoning reef bommies (easier to catch the fish we needed for dissection), and taking part in dredging Cleveland Bay every week of the semester (allegedly, to show us that ‘dredging is bad’ but really, it was just another easy way of collecting a tonne of specimen — and dinner!). Dredging tears up many miles of sea floor, and it collects everything not fast enough to get away between the dredge, the attached net and the ship. Including dolphins, (mating) turtles, sharks, sea snakes, corals, sponges, fish, squid, other invertebrates. You name it, it gets dredged and mangled.

I saw this as a murderous outrage which I simply could not bear. So, I decided to take the fight to my University, and the heads of school in whose second-year courses we were learning these ‘effective specimen collection methodologies’ in. I never stopped to think or talk about the consequences or risks of taking up the fight against those many rungs above me on the academic hierarchy. With all the righteous indignity only a 20-year old white girl can muster, I thought that being right (I found out that there was no ethics or GBRMPA permit), and also a fully fee-paying student with great marks, was enough.

Not only would I suffer no consequences for this act of whistleblowing, I would be thanked for bringing this injustice to everyone’s attention! Hailed as an environmental heroine even! Finally, I would find my place in this weird North Queensland redneck culture where cruelly ‘taking the piss’ and engaging in outrageous sexist and racist behaviour seemed to be not just the norm, but the comedic ideal. I marvel at my naïvety in hindsight.

The rest of the student body looked at me less as a fearless heroine and more as a hysterical nut job. Worse, not only was I not thanked by the administration of my University, they actively made sure I paid dearly for this act of insurrection for the rest of my time there. Oh boy, did I pay the price. Not only did my dream of working as a marine biologist die. I almost died myself, following several years of suicidal depression after learning the hard way that the world really wasn’t fair at all. Not to idealistic young world saviours, and definitely not to marine life.

There was an obvious hierarchy to life, and white guys with advanced degrees were the literal Masters of the Universe. They definitely had the power over life and (mass) death. They had the power to make obnoxious students’ lives miserable, shut them up, and kill their will to fight.

I could have had a much easier life being a typical student. I could have been getting pissed at the pub, rather than at the wildlife-murdering hypocritical patriarchy. I did learn some invaluable life lessons though. I learned about injustice, power, politics, sexism, classism, and rationalising away the mass murder of wildlife for the sake of scientific progress. And I proved that I had grit (aka pigheadedness to the point of insanity).

Any reasonable human would have taken the hint and stopped biting the hand that awarded degrees. Or at least left for academic grounds with fewer burned bridges. And yet, I stuck it out at the same University for almost 9 years after getting into this initial fight. Even though I was also repeatedly sexually harassed, stalked by a tutor, and date raped. All whilst the heart- and faceless administration threatened me with expulsion, the cancelation of my student visa, and debt collection during my entire PhD. It was one of the least fun times of my life.

But I didn’t give up or leave or stop fighting for what I knew was right, because I had created this fantasy life since my childhood. I had moved heaven and earth to get there, and I couldn’t turn back. My teachers and my mother had always predicted my certain failure of doing something so un-Austrian. But I was going to show them all. My childhood fantasy wasn’t killed off all at once. It was killed slowly and tortuously, by a thousand cuts by dozens of different people and a sociopathic academic system.

I found out 20 years later that I wasn’t the only one who was terribly mistreated during my student years. In 2016, a damning report found that 27% of students had been sexually harassed at my University — 16% every single week! Academia isn’t just killing dreams and people’s future with crippling student debt. It is literally killing students by covering up outrages like these. According to the American College Health Association, suicide is currently the second most common cause of death among college students. How are we OK with this murder of young souls and lives?

Even though I barely survived my run-in with academia in my 20s, some good things have come from my pigheaded refusal to just give up and go away. For one, turtle exclusion devices had to be used on the dredges since my complaints. And I didn’t get a nice, refined Rhodes PhD scholarship in leafy Oxbridge (for which I was on track after being awarded Best Undergrad Marine Biologist in 1997).

Emerging on the Other Side and Embracing Life

Instead of my neatly-planned academic career, I ended up in my mid-20s doing field work for my PhD on a major gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Diving coral reefs over 2km deep crocodile and shark-infested volcanic drop-offs. In a place so riven with colonialism, the villagers called me “Master”, to my eternal consternation. After a few weeks, when they got to know me better and saw my tattoos, they called me “Uritameri” (the Octopus Woman), which I loved.

I was utterly dependent on local field assistants, who at first viewed me as part entertainment, and part annoyance. Especially when I yelled at them for killing turtles, or letting fish slowly bleed out on the boat after catching them. At least once I know they discussed leaving me behind in the water and claiming it was an accident. I don’t begrudge them. I had to learn to become less of a pain in the butt with my white girl wildlife warrior whinging. In the end, I became their “Wantok” and learned some Tok Pisin. And how to chew Buai, or betel nuts without embarrassing myself.

PNG is one of the wildest and deadliest countries on earth. It taught me more about the indomitable spirit of humanity, and my own ability to overcome any obstacles — no matter how dangerous or seemingly intractable — than anything else I will ever do. I have some seriously deranged stories from this period. It was one of the best times of my life. Having had the privilege to spend time in such a crazy place is a big part of why I’m able to embrace death more than others. Because it is as honest as it is deadly and wild.

Smoking Brus, or bush tobacco with my Wantoks (“one talk” or cuzzie bros) on Lihir Island in 2000.

Ironically, being surrounded by death was the cure to overcome my years of suicidal ideations and to choose life. To PNGeans, death does not actually mean dying, even though death is a cruel and constant part of daily life. Their ancestors still ‘lived’ around them, and they left food out for them every night. I even remember the exact moment when the dark veil lifted. I was sitting on the roof of a dive boat after a successful day of field research drilling corals. I looked at the grandiose beauty of this tropical island, felt the camaraderie of my strange and wonderful new friends, and started grinning like an idiot.

My time in PNG helped me finally get over the death of my fantasy life of becoming the female Jacques Cousteau. It helped me realise that I had chosen this grandiose dream for myself at a young age so I could distract myself from my real-life trauma and neglect. It helped me stop being so pigheaded in my pursuit of my fantasies, follies and fights, and to become more realistic and pragmatic. It helped me choose a different life, in a different place, following a wholly different profession. Though I was, of course, still going to ‘save the world’. But this is for another story.

Please check out my other essays in the Medium Writers Challenge if you enjoyed this meandering tale of trauma, death and a life lived uncompromisingly. I wrote about my work and how it often turned into a (world saviour) complex here. I wrote about my re-entry from seeing everything through the death prism to being optimistic about life here. And I wrote about the importance of finding your safe space, your tūrangawaewae, here. I’d love to hear your thoughts and your stories about this existential topic.