To Spiral, Or Not to Spiral?

I’ve heard it said, and it often seems the case, that when people are excessively consumed and obsessed with a never-ending list of worries, obligations, or interests, it’s just a defense mechanism against the fear of death. Yes, I‘m starting out heavy today.

The idea is that if one keeps busy with something, or treats everything like an extremely important problem to be solved, they’ll never have to sit quietly with their thoughts. And, as any human knows, sitting quietly with one’s thoughts can often get existential. However, the ancient philosophers of Stoicism had a motto: Memento Mori. From Latin, it translates to “Remember you must die.” It’s a reminder not to be completely undone by life’s troubles, given that it is fleeting. A less formal translation might be “Don’t take life so seriously. No one gets out alive anyway.” Stoicism is not the only philosophy to encourage acquaintanceship with death. The Buddhist practice of Maraṇasati is similar, as I understand it, and I’m sure many other philosophies have a practice of meditating on death.

I find this approach valuable. It keeps me grounded. It makes it easier to laugh at minor troubles. Knowing we will die helps us understand the importance of things, or the lack thereof. It can of course, be overdone. Sitting around mulling over one’s death typically evokes existential dread.

However, what’s interesting is that the aforementioned opposite approach, the “stay busy til you drop” mindset, seems to work for most other animals. Ironically, with death all around, they never sit under a tree just thinking themselves into existential panic. They’re too busy focusing on the next meal, mate, or place to rest their weary hooves. In 1994, a biologist at Stanford named Robert M. Sapolsky wrote a book that touches on this phenomenon, titled Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. The title does a good job of hinting at what the research shows: that most other animals, even when surrounded by death, just don’t fall prey to chronic stress all that much. They do of course, panic when being chased by hyenas, but once that scare is over, they’re back to their eat-mate-sleep routine.

To me, this creates the strangest of spectra, where one extreme is good, another is bad, and where places in the middle are also either good or bad. Thanks to my world-class design skills, I was able to put that spectrum to paper:

Strangely enough, it would seem that never thinking about death is quite beneficial. You simply go about your biological responsibilities, unbothered by the inevitable return of your atoms to the soil.

Here’s where I pop that balloon: frankly, I think humans are in a position where it’s almost impossible to exist at that blissful end of the spectrum. We’re simply too introspective. At risk of oversimplification, our frontal lobes got nice and large, and with that, we unlocked our favorite pastime: ceaseless thinking. This trait, while great for imagining things like Hogwarts and Reese’s Cups, is also the reason we can sit around and think about something til it sets our hair on fire. As much as we’d like to, we can’t simply wipe the slate of our mind and live in a perpetual state of survivalist bliss. On top of that, we don’t have to forage, hunt, and struggle in the same way our ancestors did. This isn’t to belittle the modern issue of extreme poverty. That’s an immense struggle. What I mean is this: without the wild lands around us demanding that we wake up, forage, hunt, and then sleep, we have more time to think. And, when you give thinking time to an ape with frontal lobes as big as ours, it’s going to think a lot.

Therefore, I think the left end of the spectrum, the survivalist, isn’t realistic for humans. That leaves us with only one (good) option… Memento Mori. Remember you must die. Don’t dwell on it like the mourner. Don’t ignore it like the busybody. Just remember, and then make your life spectacular.

(Insert comedic relief here).

-John