Death Catalyses Life
“The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”
– Achilles; ‘Troy’
Death, as viewed through the modern, dualistic lens, is seen as the contradictory element to life.
What if this was a misguided, fear-driven perspective of death?
What if it were, in fact, the catalytic element that delivers the greatest abundance of life?
In modern times, the concept of death is, for the most part, associated with negativity, darkness, and fear. It is something that, as an idea, is often shied away from and avoided. Death is perceived to hold the opposite energetic polarity as that of life.
But does this necessarily mean that it is something ‘negative’ or ‘bad’? After all, just like the labels of ‘positive’ or ‘good’, aren’t these subjective classifications, regardless of how fervently or how many ascribe to the notion?
Even in acknowledging these directly opposing views is to recognise that they sit upon the very same spectrum of polarity; that they are related.
“Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.”
– Lao Tzu
Sigmund Freud, the nineteenth and twentieth-century founder of psychoanalysis, termed Eros (life) and Thanatos (death) as the two fundamental human instincts. In Freud’s theory, he purports that,
“Only by the concurrent or mutually opposing action of the two primal instincts — Eros and the death-instinct — never by one or the other alone, can we explain the rich multiplicity of the phenomena of life.”
– Sigmund Freud; ‘An Outline of Psycho-Analysis’
For Freud, they comprise the highest instinctual energies for man, but are also what creates life through their interplay and coalescence.
Explored from physiological standpoint, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm explains the phenomena of birth and death, also touching on similar possible developments within psychological states:
“Birth is not one act; it is a process. The aim of life is to be fully born, though its tragedy is that most of us die before we are thus born. To live is to be born every minute. Death occurs when birth stops. Physiologically our cellular system is in a process of continual birth; psychologically, however, most of us cease to be born at a certain point.”
– Erich Fromm; ‘Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis.’
There is a cyclic nature and premise that these theories connote, and we can surmise that not only does death have an active relationship with birth and life, but, in fact, plays a necessary role in their continual evolution and flourishment.
A beautiful symbol of this relationship is the Ouroboros — a snake devouring its own tail — is an illustration found in ancient Egyptian (and later, Greek tradition) iconography, symbolising the eternal renewal, or the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
A natural phenomenon which may be more familiar and unravels before our eyes every year is that of the changing seasons. The shedding of leaves in the fall, the baroness of the winter, leading into the sprouting then flourishing through spring and summer. This may be nature’s way of elegantly reminding us of the complementary dance between life and death.
“And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.”
– Virginia Woolf; ‘To the Lighthouse’
The concept of death, then, may embody a much deeper meaning than that of our ‘final’ deaths; that is, the conclusion of our physical existence. It is, too, an ever-present intra-existential process, critical to the ever-expanding richness of our existential experience.
“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”
– Haruki Murakami
In facing these intra-existential deaths — as any experience of death would be — we face painful, grief and sorrow-filled ordeals. The destruction of past identities, relationships, ideals, and conceptions are emotional gauntlets. But as will any experience of grief and loss, like a snake shedding its skin or the butterfly freeing itself from the cocoon, there is a emergence, a rebirth that signifies new life.
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
– Peter Pan
Of course, there is fear and aversion to death. But that is what, paradoxically, holds one back from the fullest experience of life. This is the general premise behind the use of the ancient Stoic dictum, ‘memento mori,’ being a stark reminder of one’s mortality, as expressed by the great Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius:
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
– Marcus Aurelius
The ancient Greeks saw death as a gift; not so much act in itself, but the ever-looming presence of its inevitability allowed one to perceive life through a lens of gratitude, and approach one’s life in equal manner.
“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
– Socrates
Our felt sense of mortality, then, can be something which, in fact, catalyses the birthing of new life, or a crippling factor. For me, I have described the diagnosis of cancer as a blessing and the greatest gift I have ever received — this simply becomes a matter of personal perspective.
Life and death can be seen as either two opposing forces which sit on opposite ends of a spectrum, one being good and the other being bad, or, are dance partners in the eternal waltz of life.
What then, becomes the goal of life, if it consists of the continual seeking of death until the eventual arrival of the ‘final’ death? Perhaps it needn’t be any more than just that. Freud certainly thought so,
“The goal of all life is death.”
– Sigmund Freud
Perhaps this seems and feels bleak and even a little empty. However, this may be the result of an aggrandised expectation that we each, in the modern world, have been veiled.
There may lack a sense of ‘meaning’ when viewed from the conventional angle of life and success, but this does not mean it lacks beauty or individualistic meaning.
Just as any artist spends countless painstaking hours honing their respective crafts in offering the closest representation and expression of their authentic self, so, too, is life our opportunity to do the same.
“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci
The seeming eternity of time and suffering we endure through cyclic death and rebirth has a sense of artisanship, in that the beauty of life we each craft and manifest is well within our own hands.
It is as bleak or vibrant as we each choose to see (and make) it.
Originally published at https://www.findingspace.co on July 3, 2020.
