BEING HUMAN (DARK HUMOR)
Mortality & Flatfeet
A necessary association?
Whenever you think of death, there will be grave consequences. That’s what we learned from the latest Barbie film (among other things, including that horses are the highway to patriarchy). More precisely, when you think of death, you get flatfeet and become unable to wear high heels, at least not all the time. And then, oh the horror, Birkenstocks are in order. Who among us cannot relate?
You will of course say it’s an allegory. I am sure it is. An allegory, perhaps, that the realization and the acceptance of death grounds us (pun intended of course, the pun is the allegory).
Death is such a peculiar issue. In some psychotherapy approaches, it is considered the issue, the one where every other possible ailment of the soul comes from, including flat-footedness of the soul (my pet name for depression).
But why? I mean, everyone knows they will die, they will readily admit to it if you ask them kindly enough. I readily admit to it right now as I type, visibly nodding to myself. But we also seem to have unconsciously surmised that it is not such a big deal, that there are ways around it. Writing this medium post, one would argue, is mine. Barbie restoring and improving Barbie Land is hers.
All examples of Immortality Projects. An interesting term I found in The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker.
Seems a bit much this term, immortality project. Who is so naive to think that they can gain immortality through a project? Well, I would argue it’s the only type of immortality left to modern humans, after God has been famously dead for some time now.
Think of it: everyone you know will get sick, decay, become worm food. You will as well. I will also. Before all this, there are also the small deaths of stinky poop: part of yourself escaping daily (hopefully) as a semi-soft (hopefully) string of lukewarm brown ice-cream (lukewarm ice-cream, oh the games God plays!) Small deaths of a soul that can so readily imagine in its mind’s eye a land of happiness, with tidings of comfort and joy. Cue the heavenly chorus.
Oh, the things we can imagine (Barbie Land) versus the things we are limited to be (flat footed, although we looove ♥high heels♥ so much)! Nothing you are ever going to do matters or is going to make any difference ever. No?
Well, although we all readily admit we are going to die, I don’t think admitting that nothing we can ever do is going “to matter” comes so automatically. There are resistances to this.
This resistance is your immortality project. And mattering is our response to death. “I came to take you”, says the Reaper. “No problem: I matter” say you. Death does not seem impressed; you secretly hoped He would, a bit.
Leaving a name behind, getting in the annals of history (no connection to any previous discussion on anality). Or, better yet, aligning with major milestones of society: having children, leaving the world a better place, striving to become the best version of yourself, crashing the competition, having the largest a-bit-too-phallic space rocket around.
Don’t get me wrong. These are important stuff. But we are so afraid to let go, to let our feet rest solidly on the ground and touch the worms and the poop and the cool slightly moist soil while at the same time working on our phallic space rocket. These important stuff live so much in our heads, and they easily spiral out of proportion to a symbolic importance far beyond what they truly are.
I can feel your anger building up at this point. What are we to do, you ask, die in pessimism? — you perverted nihilist, seeing poop and worms everywhere darn you?
Well, I am glad you asked. Because I do have the answer. Drum roll. We are to do stuff. See? I am not a nihilist. Quite the opposite.
Do stuff with flexibility and humility. And please, do not overburden your stuff with the added need to make them matter.
And in any case, if you look honestly and deeply at what mattering would mean, you will realize you cannot give a very precise answer. “I will know it when it happens”, you say.
Well, sorry to disappoint, but you won’t. Well, I mean, you will. But it will be more like this: at some point you will find other people that also think these stuff y’all doing matters and collectively delude each other into thinking that it does. Also, maybe, you will defend this closed loop of delusion against other people who think it does not and who have their own loop to likewise defend. And you will clash with the righteous might of Truth and Mattering and Immortality Project Management. The next step is not to peer too much into your loop and there you have it: a pretty good recipe to get you rather nicely to the death bed (don’t know if it will carry you through though).
Well, if that’s what you want, be my guest. It’s a fair approach. It of course leads from time to time to massive institutionalised murder and wars and racism and other -isms and sour faces in the morning and bad breath and whatnot. But more often than not it’s fair enough. But you might also want to examine what it means if nothing you do matters, but you keep doing stuff. Why do them?
I do not know. And that’s precisely the point. Hold this thought for a moment. A bit more. Ok, release.
When you do stuff this way, you do not need to aim for any promise of tidings of comfort (or joy). Somehow, you feel unburdened, and light. You almost do not touch the ground.
And thus dear reader we reach thusly my official position towards the original proposition: Negative, sir! The realization of death does not necessarily lead to flatfeet. Quite the opposite. It just needs to not matter to you to make Barbie Land a better place. And do it anyway.
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