Self-Motivation
David Goggins
Former Navy Seal
Career Development
Bryan Cranston
Actor
Critical Thinking
Liv Boeree
International Poker Champion
Emotional Intelligence
Amaryllis Fox
Former CIA Clandestine Operative
Management
Chris Hadfield
Retired Canadian Astronaut & Author
Learn
from the world's big
thinkers
Start Learningfrom the world's big
thinkers
Horror video games may have therapeutic value
Fighting materialized, virtual monsters can be cathartic in stressful and precarious times.
24 June, 2020
Naughty Dog
- Some of the most downloaded video game genres during the pandemic quarantine have been horror games designed to inspire terror and anxiety.
- Authors of a new study say that inserting yourself into a virtual horror realm could offer relief during times of stress by allowing you to engage and dominate materialized monsters and demons.
- They argue that the horror game appeal is similar to religious methods to grapple with fear and guilt (sin).
<p>A befuddling trend in the world of gaming culture has emerged in the coronavirus era. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, economic decline, social injustice, and the resulting social unrest, some of the most downloaded video game genres in recent months have been horror games designed to inspire terror and anxiety. For example, "Resident Evil 3," "The Last of Us Part 2," "Nioh," and "Doom Eternal" have all seen a spike in downloads.</p><p>As it turns out, there may be a psychological explanation. Some researchers think that inserting yourself into a virtual horror anti-fantasy could offer relief during times of stress.</p>
The ‘Mastering Monsters’ hypothesis
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxMzIzNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDY2MTAwNn0.LPQHHM2gBsw4qmNlGo3AQ0qahC3JF1A-sX_wC8zCBcc/img.jpg?width=980" id="9880d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a032e677c8a2fe2dac5219c5b6ee5bdf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Still image from "DayZ" game" />DayZ
Photo Credit: images.pexels.com
<p>In a new study <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/preternature.5.2.0213?mag=the-therapeutic-value-of-horror-video-games&seq=1" target="_blank">published in the journal Preternature</a>, the authors suggest that disturbing video games may have a therapeutic role in today's precarious world by providing players the illusion of control. "Faced with physical and psychological dangers, human beings imagine them as monsters and seek to master them," they write in the paper.</p><p>This idea is exemplified by the authors through a critical analysis of the post-apocalyptic game "DayZ," in which the player enters the middle of a zombie infested landscape. The aim is simply to survive with bare minimum equipment and a fragile character. Death in the game is final, and the character has to be recreated to play again. Essentially, the goal is to keep the underdog character alive as long as possible despite the stacked odds. </p><p>Maybe it hits too close to home, but for some it might be exactly the kind of escapism they are craving right now. At least, that's what the authors suggest. They explain that when unfortunate and uncontrollable events start to occur in our worlds (i.e. coronavirus) we may personify them as malevolent forces intentionally out to destroy us; our health, our jobs, our relationships, etc. But these forces in our environment are not material and maddeningly elusive. Horror video games, on the other hand, solidify those fears into material monsters. They offer players a virtual realm in which they can embody a character that can actually fight and possibly destroy those forces. In this way, these games give individuals a sense of control in precarious times. </p>What gaming and religion have in common
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2a96c300081fcaaa5845556a49256382"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d9W0q6RqdV0?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Much of the stress that stems from something like a pandemic or economic uncertainty is the helpless feeling about events entirely out of our control. Terrorizing video games offer the opportunity to actually <em>do something</em> about stressful events.</p><p>"The horrific experience of video games, and hence their cathartic appeal, emerges when a game produces a constant level of anxiety in players while allowing the players to act on it," the authors explain. They write that fans of "DayZ," "generally enjoy, rather than avoid, the combination of permanent death…and the drive to strengthen their characters and make them safe." </p><p>The authors argue that this is similar to religious tactics to grapple with fear and guilt (sin).</p><p>"Religion stems, in part, from our capacity to see agency in our environment," explains the study. "A strategy designed to help us avoid danger, but which also leads us to believe that there are forces at work just outside of our immediate awareness. The tendency to turn shadows into stalkers and fallen twigs into footsteps."</p><p>Both horror games and the belief in an angel / demon spiritual duality of the universe give us a sense of control over our destinies. </p>Study details and conclusions
<p>After surveying more than 7000 players of two online horror games, "Requiem: Memento Mori" and "DayZ," the researchers found that nearly 70 percent reported that the gaming experience was mildly to very cathartic. Another interesting finding was that 20 percent of the participants reported that since playing the video game they felt that things were less frightening than before. Though, most said that the games had not changed their daily life.</p><p>The authors believe that the dark forces faced in the electronic world of video games "represent the irrational, the repressed, and the wholly other." They go on to suggest that those experiences are reconstructed in the world of a horror game and manifested as tangible, albeit virtual, monsters that players feel are directly challenging. </p><p>"That these games exist shows that we need horror," they conclude. "The demonic and the monstrous appear in pop culture because they represent evil and our fears and anxieties. It is our human nature to be attracted to the horrific and obtain pleasure from encountering it because this is how we gain a partial and temporary victory over ourselves."</p><p>Ultimately, these findings seem to indicate that human nature seeks physical control, even the illusion of control, over our fates and fears whether it's through horror gaming, religion, protest, or another means. </p>
Keep reading
Show less
Photo by Anusha Barwa on Unsplash
- A 2019 study in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion found that religious believers are more likely to own dogs than cats.
- Researchers found that hardcore evangelicals are less likely to own pets than more the progressive religious.
- Pet ownership also skews political: Democrats prefer cats while Republicans choose dogs.
<p>Bastet was the daughter of the sun. The ancient Egyptian goddess was originally a fierce lioness warrior—a strong woman with the head of a big cat. Over time, her image morphed into a recognizable house cat until, as domestication commenced, her role disappeared altogether. I suppose it's difficult treating the furry purring machine rubbing up against your leg as an all-powerful solar goddess.</p><p>Strangely, there aren't a ton of feline deities. Bastet is by far the most famous. There's Dawon, the tigress that carries the fierce goddess, Durga, into combat; Bali's panther god, Barong Ket; Ovinnik, the black cat that chases away evil ghosts on Polish farms; and China's Li Shou, also revered by farmers for decimating mice and rats. Given their ubiquity in our world, you'd think cats would have a more religious presence. </p><p>Perhaps we can point to believers' lack of appreciation for cats. That's the topic of a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jssr.12637" target="_blank">2019 study</a>, published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. University of Oklahoma associate professor, Samuel Perry, and Eastern Illinois University assistant professor, Ryan Burge, wanted to gauge pet ownership among church goers. The religious prefer dogs by a wide margin: 74.9 percent to 40.3 percent. </p><p>Americans love dogs. With over 70 million claimed, we own 2.5 times as many canines as the runner-up, China. We also love spending money on pets: over $72 billion in 2018. That's more than on all sports combined. </p><p>Previous research points out religious tradition and biblical literalism don't necessarily predict pet ownership, though the team did discover that evangelicals are less likely to own a pet than progressive faiths. That's also true for people that attend church most often. </p>
Jackson Galaxy's Top Tips For Cat Owners | My Cat From Hell
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bfc883e7258e80ec94eb01e1ccae29ab"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rjol1zMVcos?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>For this study, Perry and Burge used a 2018 survey with 2,348 respondents. Half replied to questions about pet ownership, with mean average of 1.72 pets per household. They broke down statistics on the three largest religious groups: evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Catholics.</p><p>Biblical significance only affects evangelicals. Since the Bible isn't exactly PETA-friendly, with all the directives about lording over the kingdom, hardcore religious appear less likely to support animal rights and are more likely to tolerate cruelty toward other species.</p><p>On a related note, pet ownership is political: dogs are more likely to live in rural, Republican-leaning regions, while cats dominate urban, Democratic strongholds. </p><p>The most interesting aspect of their study involves speculation about pet owner psychology. Apparently, the most religious households think about what a pet can <em>do</em> instead of adopting them for what they <em>are</em>.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We would expect that Christian conservatism―as indicated by evangelical affiliation and more literalist interpretations of the Bible―would predict the ownership of family pets that have more practical utility such as dogs, but not necessarily cats."</p><p>Cat owners are often considered isolated, neurotic individuals, whereas "dog people" are social and extraverted. Indeed, dog park visits and walking around the neighborhood appear to be motivating factors for owning a dog. Larger families tend to be more religious <em>and</em> own more dogs as well. </p><p>The antisocial aspect of cat owners has recently been downplayed. A few crazy ladies can't ruin the image for the rest of us. Pet ownership is psychologically healthy: Having an animal reduces your anxiety and depression, as well as increases self-esteem among adults and children.</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4NTQ4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0Nzc3ODA2N30.ctJDA012TxjQee-4VyA7ysSDvSR4TkhalZvljgDNGqs/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C604%2C0%2C261&height=700" id="df5f5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f463c1cd1f95a46fa5f72f8cfaae84f8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="dog lying on carpet with paw on top of cat" />
Photo by Tatiana Rodriguez on Unsplash
<p>After over two decades of living with cats, there are two personal notes I have of this <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/202006/why-religious-people-are-less-likely-own-cats" target="_blank">and related</a> studies. </p><p>While cats are independent animals, they are not antisocial. My wife and I have three cats. Every evening, three cats surround us on the couch; this is an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8vDPhyHk6l/" target="_blank">actual photo</a> she snapped while we were watching a movie. Hardly a night passes without all three sleeping on our bed—socially distanced, as cats do. Two hang out in my office daily while I'm writing; the third has claimed a cubby just outside my office door. </p><p>Like other animals, cats respond to how you treat them. If you act as if they're antisocial, they'll respond in kind. If you regularly play with and hold them, especially from an early age, you've got a companion for life. As they are extremely territorial creatures, if you construct a living environment conducive to their needs—lots of places to climb up high and look out windows—they're going to love living in that environment. Adopting one and refusing to meet them on their terms guarantees antisocial behavior. </p><p>The other comment is more speculative. Western religion is based on top-down authority. God gives directives; humans follow. This plays well with the psychology of dogs (which, to be clear, we also love). Dogs understand reward and punishment. If they could read, they'd love the Bible. </p><p>Punishment doesn't work on cats. They're not designed that way. If you scream at a cat while he's urinating on your carpet, he's going to think, "Why is this ape yelling?" not "I shouldn't be doing this." You probably shouldn't own a cat if you can't come to terms with this feature of their psychology.</p><p>Cats understand rewards, which is why <a href="https://www.adventurecats.org/backcountry-basics/how-to-clicker-train-a-cat/" target="_blank">clicker training</a> is so effective. They'll never realize that urination + carpet = bad, but they will get that urination + litter box = treat, especially if you tether the treat to a clicker. (Clicker training also works for dogs, horses, and other animals.) </p><p>If you're trained to believe in a god that doles out punishment to criminals and rewards the faithful, you'll inherently understand dogs. By contrast, domesticated cats are the offspring of nature's fiercest killing machine. They have no need for your punishment or deities, but they will accept your treats. Think of it as tithing. </p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://derekberes.substack.com/" target="_blank">Substack</a>. His next book is</em> "<em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em></p>
Keep reading
Show less
Why do you believe what you do? Run some diagnostics on it
Does what you believe in come from reason? Or just your community?
08 June, 2020
John Moore/Getty Images
Many of the beliefs that play a fundamental role in our worldview are largely the result of the communities in which we've been immersed.
<p> Religious parents tend to beget religious children, liberal educational institutions tend to produce liberal graduates, blue states stay mostly blue, and red ones stay mostly red. Of course, some people, through their own sheer intelligence, might be able to see through fallacious reasoning, detect biases and, as a result, resist the social influences that lead most of us to belief. But I'm not that special, and so learning how susceptible my beliefs are to these sorts of influences makes me a bit squirmy.</p><p>Let's work with a hypothetical example. Suppose I'm raised among atheists and firmly believe that God doesn't exist. I realise that, had I grown up in a religious community, I would almost certainly have believed in God. Furthermore, we can imagine that, had I grown up a theist, I would have been exposed to all the considerations that I take to be relevant to the question of whether God exists: I would have learned science and history, I would have heard all the same arguments for and against the existence of God. The difference is that I would <em>interpret</em> this evidence differently. Divergences in belief result from the fact that people weigh the evidence for and against theism in varying ways. It's not as if pooling resources and having a conversation would result in one side convincing the other – we wouldn't have had centuries of religious conflict if things were so simple. Rather, each side will insist that the balance of considerations supports its position – and this insistence will be a product of the social environments that people on that side were raised in.</p><p>The you-just-believe-that-because challenge is meant to make us suspicious of our beliefs, to motivate us to reduce our confidence, or even abandon them completely. But what exactly does this challenge amount to? The fact that I have my particular beliefs as a result of growing up in a certain community is just a boring psychological fact about me and is not, in itself, evidence for or against anything so grand as the existence of God. So, you might wonder, if these psychological facts about us are not themselves evidence for or against our worldview, why would learning them motivate any of us to reduce our confidence in such matters?</p>
<p>The <em>method</em> of believing whatever one's social surroundings tell one to believe is not reliable. So, when I learn about the social influences on my belief, I learn that I've formed my beliefs using an unreliable method. If it turns out that my thermometer produces its readings using an unreliable mechanism, I cease to trust the thermometer. Similarly, learning that my beliefs were produced by an unreliable process means that I should cease to trust them too.</p><p>But in the hypothetical example, do I really hold that <em>my</em> beliefs were formed by an unreliable mechanism? I might think as follows: 'I formed my atheistic beliefs as a result of growing up in <em>my</em> particular community, not as a result of growing up in <em>some community or another</em>. The fact that there are a bunch of communities out there that inculcate their members with false beliefs doesn't mean that my community does. So I deny that my beliefs were formed by an unreliable method. Luckily for me, they were formed by an extremely reliable method: they are the result of growing up among intelligent well-informed people with a sensible worldview.'</p><p>The thermometer analogy, then, is inapt. Learning that I would have believed differently if I'd been raised by a different community is not like learning that <em>my</em> thermometer is unreliable. It's more like learning that my thermometer came from a store that sells a large number of unreliable thermometers. But the fact that the store sells unreliable thermometers doesn't mean I shouldn't trust the readings of my particular thermometer. After all, I might have excellent reasons to think that I got lucky and bought one of the few reliable ones.</p>
<p>There's something fishy about the 'I got lucky' response because I would think <em>the very same thing</em> if I were raised in a community that I take to believe falsehoods. If I'm an atheist, I might think: 'Luckily, I was raised by people who are well-educated, take science seriously, and aren't in the grip of old-fashioned religious dogma.' But if I were a theist, I would think something along the lines of: 'If I'd been raised among arrogant people who believe that there is nothing greater than themselves, I might never have personally experienced God's grace, and would have ended up with a completely distorted view of reality.' The fact that the 'I got lucky' response is a response <em>anyone</em> could give seems to undermine its legitimacy.</p><p>Despite the apparent fishiness of the 'I got lucky' response in the case of religious belief, this response is perfectly sensible in other cases. Return to the thermometers. Suppose that, when I was looking for a thermometer, I knew very little about the different types and picked a random one off the shelf. After learning that the store sells many unreliable thermometers, I get worried and do some serious research. I discover that the particular thermometer I bought is produced by a reputable company whose thermometers are extraordinarily reliable. There's nothing wrong with thinking: 'How lucky I am to have ended up with <em>this</em> excellent thermometer!'</p><p>What's the difference? Why does it seem perfectly reasonable to think I got lucky about the thermometer I bought but not to think that I got lucky with the community I was raised in? Here's the answer: my belief that the community I was raised in is a reliable one is <em>itself</em>, plausibly, a result of growing up in that community. If I don't take for granted the beliefs that my community instilled in me, then I'll find that I have no particular reason to think that my community is more reliable than others. If we're evaluating the reliability of some belief-forming method, we can't use beliefs that are the result of that very method in support of that method's reliability.</p><p>So, if we ought to abandon our socially influenced beliefs, it is for the following reason: deliberation about whether to maintain or abandon a belief, or set of beliefs, due to the worries about how the beliefs were formed must be conducted from a perspective that doesn't rely on the beliefs in question. Here's another way of putting the point: when we're concerned about some belief we have, and are wondering whether to give it up, we're engaged in doubt. When we doubt, we set aside some belief or cluster of beliefs, and we wonder whether the beliefs in question can be recovered from a perspective that doesn't rely on those beliefs. Sometimes, we learn that they can be recovered once they've been subject to doubt, and other times we learn that they can't.</p>
<p>What's worrisome about the realisation that our moral, religious and political beliefs are heavily socially influenced is that many ways of recovering belief from doubt are not available to us in this case. We can't make use of ordinary arguments in support of these beliefs because, in the perspective of doubt, the legitimacy of those very arguments is being questioned: after all, we are imagining that we find the arguments for our view more compelling than the arguments for alternative views as a result of the very social influences with which we're concerned. In the perspective of doubt, we also can't take the fact that we believe what we do as evidence for the belief's truth, because we know that we believe what we do simply because we were raised in a certain environment, and the fact that we were raised here rather than there is no good reason to think that our beliefs are the correct ones.</p><p>It's important to realise that the concern about beliefs being socially influenced is worrisome <em>only</em> if we're deliberating about whether to maintain belief from the perspective of doubt. For recall that the facts about how my particular beliefs were caused are not, in themselves, evidence for or against any particular religious, moral or political outlook. So if you were thinking about whether to abandon your beliefs from a perspective in which you're willing to make use of all of the reasoning and arguments that you normally use, you would simply think that you got lucky – just as you might have got lucky buying a particular thermometer, or reaching the train moments before it shuts its doors, or striking up a conversation on an airplane with someone who ends up being the love of your life.</p><p>There's no general problem with thinking that we've been lucky – sometimes we are. The worry is just that, from the perspective of doubt<em>,</em> we don't have the resources to justify the claim that we've been lucky. What's needed to support such a belief is part of what's being questioned.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/cf6284e9-e1cb-47ad-85c7-e7734dd85329.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>Miriam Schoenfield</p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/why-do-you-believe-what-you-do-run-some-diagnostics-on-it" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
Keep reading
Show less
Cannabis discovered at an ancient biblical shrine in Israel
That's not frankincense you smell at the "holy of the holies."
02 June, 2020
Photo courtesy of Tel Aviv.
- Cannabis and frankincense were discovered at the "holy of holies" shrine in Tel Arad, Israel.
- Both substances were mixed with animal dung to promote heating.
- This marks the first time cannabis has been found in the Kingdom of Judah.
<p>In an <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26841800/" target="_blank">extensive review</a> of the history and pharmacology of psychedelics, American chemist David E. Nichols writes that this class of serotonergic hallucinogens "may be the oldest class of psychopharmacological agents known to man." Three thousand year old hymns to soma—a tea likely brewed with psilocybin mushrooms—are recorded in Vedic literature; the Eleusinian mysteries almost certainly involved a hallucinogenic brew. </p><p>Humans have been tripping for a long time.</p><p>This isn't surprising. Our ancestors undoubtedly tasted every plant and fungus available. If you're seeking food and stumble into a plant that breaks open the head (as the Bwiti describe the African rainforest shrub, iboga), you'll likely cultivate it. You might even create a ritual or two based on its consciousness-expanding qualities. Maybe a religion springs up devoted to plant life. </p><p>Indian scriptures point to cannabis as often as psilocybin. The god Indra loved drinking <em>bhang</em>, a milky beverage containing enough marijuana to make him trip. Shiva imbibed as well. The Vedas praise cannabis as a "divine nectar" that bestows long life and divine visions. Further north, Chinese Taoists combined cannabis with ginseng in a ceremony that helped monks portend the future. Herodotus praised cannabis steam baths built by the warrior clan, the Scythians. </p><p>As it turns out, Jews loved cannabis as well. An excavation at an Israeli shrine in Tel Arad has uncovered an altar filled with cannabis and frankincense. According to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26841800/" target="_blank">new research</a> published in the journal, Tel Aviv, the "holy of holies" shrine dates back to 750-715 BCE. As the researchers—Eran Arie, Baruch Rosen, and Dvory Namdar—write, the ritual usage appears to be hallucinogenic. </p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5affcdd04591bb11f8badeaa9c585d35"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DvlEras2ytI?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>A black, resinous substance was discovered on two small altars. On one of them, a laboratory analysis found residues of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD), and cannabinol (CBN). According to Arie, this marks the first time cannabis has been identified in the Ancient Near East. The article notes that another material was discovered in the resin.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Organic residues attributed to animal dung were also found, suggesting that the cannabis resin had been mixed with dung to enable mild heating."</p><p>The frankincense altar also contained animal fat, which promotes evaporation. Both frankincense and cannabis were likely mixed with animal products to promote burning. The fragrant incense was inhaled—frankincense for its aroma, cannabis for its psychoactive properties. </p><p>Frankincense dates back to the 15<sup>th</sup> century BCE and has long been used ceremonially. In the Bible, this tree resin is as valuable as gold and precious stones. Frankincense is one of the earliest known commodities, dating back 6,000 years on the Arabian peninsula; it fetched a high price as it was traded around the ancient world. While the smell is pleasing it doesn't have the same effect on consciousness. Enter cannabis. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"As the terpenoids detected are not unique to cannabis and may be found abundantly in many other local plants, it is likely that the cannabis burnt on the altar was not imported for its smell or therapeutic virtues but for its mind-altering abilities, expressed only by heating."</p><p>The authors are aware of hallucinogenic rituals in neighboring lands. This is the first time cannabis has been discovered in the Kingdom of Judah, however. The evidence proves what fans of psychoactive pharmacology have long known: Breaking open the head is an ancient tradition, regardless of ethnicity or religious belief.</p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://derekberes.substack.com/" target="_blank">Substack</a>. His next book is</em> "<em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em> </p>
<p class=""><br></p>
Keep reading
Show less
Sooner or later we all face death. Will a sense of meaning help us?
As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body, how closely mortality lurks just around the corner.
31 May, 2020
Photo by Alex Boyd on Unsplash
'Despite all our medical advances,' my friend Jason used to quip, 'the mortality rate has remained constant – one per person.'
<p>Jason and I studied medicine together back in the 1980s. Along with everyone else in our course, we spent six long years memorising everything that could go wrong with the human body. We diligently worked our way through a textbook called <em>Pathologic Basis of Disease</em> that described, in detail, every single ailment that could befall a human being. It's no wonder medical students become hypochondriacal, attributing sinister causes to any lump, bump or rash they find on their own person.</p><p>Jason's oft-repeated observation reminded me that death (and disease) are unavoidable aspects of life. It sometimes seems, though, that we've developed a delusional denial of this in the West. We pour billions into prolonging life with increasingly expensive medical and surgical interventions, most of them employed in our final, decrepit years. From a big-picture perspective, this seems a futile waste of our precious health-dollars.</p><p>Don't get me wrong. If I get struck down with cancer, heart disease or any of the myriad life-threatening ailments I learnt about in medicine, I want all the futile and expensive treatments I can get my hands on. I value my life. In fact, like most humans, I value staying alive above pretty much everything else. But also, like most, I tend to not really value my life unless I'm faced with the imminent possibility of it being taken away from me.</p>
<p>Another old friend of mine, Ross, was studying philosophy while I studied medicine. At the time, he wrote an essay called 'Death the Teacher' that had a profound effect on me. It argued that the best thing we could do to appreciate life was to keep the inevitability of our death always at the forefront of our minds.</p><p>When the Australian palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware interviewed scores of people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, she asked them their greatest regrets. The most frequent, published in her <a href="https://www.hayhouse.com/the-top-five-regrets-of-the-dying" target="_blank">book</a> <em>The Top Five Regrets of the Dying</em> (2011), were:</p><ol><li>I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me;</li><li>I wish I hadn't worked so hard;</li><li>I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings;</li><li>I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends; and</li><li>I wish that I had let myself be happier.</li></ol><p>The relationship between death-awareness and leading a fulfilling life was a central concern of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose work inspired Jean-Paul Sartre and other existentialist thinkers. Heidegger lamented that too many people wasted their lives running with the 'herd' rather than being true to themselves. But Heidegger actually struggled to live up to his own ideals; in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party, hoping it would advance his career.</p>
<p>Despite his shortcomings as a man, Heidegger's ideas would go on to influence a wide range of philosophers, artists, theologians and other thinkers. Heidegger believed that Aristotle's notion of Being – which had run as a thread through Western thinking for more than 2,000 years, and been instrumental in the development of scientific thinking – was flawed at a most fundamental level. Whereas Aristotle saw all of existence, including human beings, as things we could classify and analyse to increase our understanding of the world, in <em>Being and Time</em> (1927) Heidegger argued that, before we start classifying Being, we should first ask the question: 'Who or what is doing all this questioning?'</p><p>Heidegger pointed out that we who are asking questions about Being are qualitatively different to the rest of existence: the rocks, oceans, trees, birds and insects that we are asking about. He invented a special word for this Being that asks, looks and cares. He called it <em>Dasein</em>, which loosely translates as 'being there'. He coined the term <em>Dasein</em> because he believed that we had become immune to words such as 'person', 'human' and 'human being', losing our sense of wonder about our own consciousness.</p><p>Heidegger's philosophy remains attractive to many today who see how science struggles to explain the experience of being a moral, caring person aware that his precious, mysterious, beautiful life will, one day, come to an end. According to Heidegger, this awareness of our own inevitable demise makes us, unlike the rocks and trees, hunger to make our life worthwhile, to give it meaning, purpose and value.</p>
<p>While Western medical science, which is based on Aristotelian thinking, sees the human body as a material thing that can be understood by examining it and breaking it down to its constituent parts like any other piece of matter, Heidegger's ontology puts human experience at the centre of our understanding of the world.</p><p>Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with melanoma. As a doctor, I knew how aggressive and rapidly fatal this cancer could be. Fortunately for me, the surgery seemed to achieve a cure (touch wood). But I was also fortunate in another sense. I became aware, in a way I never had before, that I was going to die – if not from melanoma, then from something else, eventually. I have been much happier since then. For me, this realisation, this acceptance, this awareness that I am going to die is at least as important to my wellbeing as all the advances of medicine, because it reminds me to live my life to the full every day. I don't want to experience the regret that Ware heard about more than any other, of not living 'a life true to myself'.</p><p>Most Eastern philosophical traditions appreciate the importance of death-awareness for a well-lived life. <em>The</em> <em>Tibetan Book of the Dead</em>, for example, is a central text of Tibetan culture. The Tibetans spend a lot of time living with death, if that isn't an oxymoron.</p><p>The East's greatest philosopher, Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/was-the-buddha-an-awakened-prince-or-a-humble-itinerant" target="_blank">Buddha</a>, realised the importance of keeping the end in sight. He saw desire as the cause of all suffering, and counselled us not to get too attached to worldly pleasures but, rather, to focus on more important things such as loving others, developing equanimity of mind, and staying in the present.</p><p>The last thing the Buddha said to his followers was: 'Decay is inherent in all component things! Work out your salvation with diligence!' As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body, how closely mortality lurks just around the corner. As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, however, I am also reminded how empty life can be if we have no sense of meaning or purpose. An awareness of our mortality, of our precious finitude, can, paradoxically, move us to seek – and, if necessary, create – the meaning that we so desperately crave.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/71b0539e-67f6-466c-a52b-da10d9ca0cf3.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/sooner-or-later-we-all-face-death-will-a-sense-of-meaning-help-us" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
Keep reading
Show less
Popular
Featured Video
