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The Will To Live Fully
“The irony of man’s condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
Isn’t it ironic?
Ernest’s book, The Denial of Death, is an absolute masterpiece and I urge you to read it.
Picture an amoeba, happily floating around under your microscope lens. Now, imagine placing carefully, with a needle, a tiny bit of chloride on the solution it is floating in. As the chloride comes near the amoeba, what do you think happens? What do you imagine?
Repulsion. tssssssss (sound).
The Amoeba is instantly repelled from the toxic, deadly substance. And so it swims away, filled with microscopic fear.
Human beings are no different. We are repelled by death. Our whole lives are lived avoiding it. We wouldn’t be here were that primal fear not be deeply embedded in us. We naturally fear death.
Unlike the amoeba though, we can think, subjectively, about our existence. We do not feel ourselves merely as bodies, we picture ourselves in our heads, and extend beyond the physical realm.
Think about this for a minute, “about yourself”.
