Why talk about death

Death – someone else’s, and even more so one’s own – belongs to the realm of the inexpressible. We ignore it, avoid it, deny it. But in order to live more meaningfully and vividly, we have to learn to think about it without fear.

“I can’t imagine how you will write about it. It is so hard!” psychotherapist Inna Khamitova told me when we met to talk about death and how we deal with it. And I felt something inside me shrink into a ball in response. Neither the sun nor death can be looked at point-blank, said La Rochefoucauld in the book Maxims. It is not surprising that the editorial assignment aroused great anxiety: for a long time I avoided not only talking, but even thinking about death, about incurable diseases, about catastrophes that entailed human casualties.

Many do this – at best, we symbolically pay off death by sending money for an operation to a seriously ill person or to support a hospice, and with this we close the topic for ourselves. A Psychologies poll found that 57% of us rarely think about it. And even the most courageous are not free from fear. “This dark shadow is something that no living being can escape,” writes psychotherapist Irwin Yalom in Gazing at the Sun. Life without fear of death. But if it frightens us so much, is it necessary to talk about it?

Children’s questions

There are many paradoxes in the subject of death. The beginning of a new life is at the same time the first step towards the end. The consciousness of its inevitability should deprive our life of meaning, and yet it does not prevent us from loving, dreaming, and rejoicing. The question is how we try to resolve for ourselves, or at least comprehend these contradictions. More often than not, our mind fails.

“We always have a few suitable maxims in reserve, with which we are ready to regale others on occasion,” wrote Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical therapy in “Problems of the Soul of Our Time,” “Everyone must die someday,” “Human life is not eternal “. Using a suitable stamp as a lifeline, we live as if we were immortal.

The origins of our relationship to death lie in childhood experience. “At a very early age, a child has no idea of ​​either time or cause-and-effect relationships and, naturally, there is no fear of death,” explains Inna Khamitova. “But already at the age of four, he can understand that someone close to him has died. Although he does not realize that this is leaving forever.

It is very important how parents behave at this moment, the psychotherapist emphasizes. For example, many adults do not take children to funerals so as not to scare them … and in vain.

Silence on this topic also affects children in the same way. The child reads the message: we don’t talk about it, it’s too scary. Thus, a painful, neurotic attitude towards death can arise. Conversely, if some rituals are observed in the family, for example, they remember the deceased grandmother on her birthday, this helps children cope with fear.

At first, children are afraid of the death of their parents and other loved ones. The child also knows about his mortality, but he realizes it only later – closer to adolescence. “Adolescents have an increased interest in death,” notes Inna Khamitova. “For them, this is a way to understand themselves, to feel their boundaries, to feel alive. And at the same time a way to switch the alarm. They seem to prove to themselves: I am not afraid, death is my sister.

Over the years, this fear recedes before the main life tasks of young adults: to master a profession, to start a family. “But three decades later … a midlife crisis breaks out, and the fear of death falls upon us with renewed vigor,” recalls Irvin Yalom. – Reaching the pinnacle of life, we look at the path in front of us and understand that now this path does not lead up, but down, to sunset and disappearance. From this moment on, anxiety about death does not leave us anymore.

With wide eyes closed

“Today, only in small towns or in the countryside, the tradition of burying the whole world is preserved. Children are present at the funeral, they hear the conversations of adults – that one has died, or this one will die soon, and perceive death as a natural thing, part of the eternal cycle, says Jungian analyst Stanislav Raevsky. “And in the big city, there seems to be no death, it is banished from sight. Here you will no longer see a funeral in the yard, you will not hear a funeral orchestra, as it was 25-30 years ago.

We see death closely when someone close to us dies. That is, we can not face it for many years. Interestingly, this is offset by the abundance of deaths that we see on TV, not to mention computer games, where the hero has many lives. But this is an emasculated, artificial, constructed death, which in our fantasies seems to be under the control of our power.

Repressed fear breaks through the way we speak. “I’m dying – I want to sleep”, “you will drive me into a coffin”, “tired to death” – our speech is sprinkled with references to death, although we do not mean it at all. On the other hand, “real” death remains taboo in our language – we prefer to speak in a sublime style (“passed away”, “left this world”, “ended his days”, “fell eternal sleep”) or, conversely, deliberately dismissively (“ gave up”, “played in the box”, “gave the oak”) – just not to call a spade a spade.

And yet, sometimes we involuntarily become aware of this fear, says Inna Khamitova: “Funerals, serious illnesses, accidents, any partings bring us back to thoughts about death and the fears associated with it.”

What are we really afraid of?

“At the very bottom of our feelings about death lies a purely biological fear, at the level of instinct,” admits Irvin Yalom. “It’s a primal fear, and I’ve experienced it too. Words cannot express it.”

But unlike other living beings, man knows that someday he will die. From this follow fears of a higher order, and above all – the fear of non-existence (for believers – other-being), which we cannot comprehend. About this “after” – Hamlet’s monologue: “To die. Sleep forget. Fall asleep… and dream? Here is the answer. What dreams will be dreamed in that mortal dream, When the veil of earthly feeling is removed?

The path to non-existence is all the more terrible because everyone will have to do it alone. As Irvin Yalom says: “In death, a person is always alone, more alone than ever in life. Death not only separates us from others, but also condemns us to a second, more frightening form of loneliness – separation from the world itself.

Finally, with each of us goes our unique inner world, which exists only in our minds. “The death of a person is perhaps even worse than physical death,” Inna Khamitova reflects. “In fact, we are afraid of disappearing. Such is the nature of the fear of infirmity, severe illness or dementia, which may precede death. It’s the fear of not being yourself, of losing your identity.”

How do we deal with it

“By learning to understand the death of other people, its action in them, its action in us through the experience of someone else’s death, we will be able to look death in the face, in the end, to face our own death — at first as a possibility, or rather an inevitability, but inevitability often as as if so far away that we do not reckon with it – and then as the very reality that is coming upon us, ”explains Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh in Life, Illness, Death.

And yet we are afraid of this “face to face” to the very end. Over the millennia, mankind has come up with many ways to alleviate the suffering caused by this fear. The most powerful of them is religion, which gives hope for eternal life, for reunion with those whom we loved and lost, for the reward for a righteous life.

However, this hope gives rise to another fear – forever paying for their sins. We try to counter this fear by symbolically securing our immortality through children or achievements. The formula “build a house, plant a tree, raise a son” reinforces precisely this desire to leave a mark, not to be forgotten, to continue oneself even beyond the threshold of death.

Although, it would seem, what difference does it make to us whether we leave a trace or not, since we will not be there anyway? “The whole question is what we consider our “I,” says Stanislav Raevsky. Where do we draw the line between self and non-self? Is it just the boundaries of our body? Is my “I” only in my inner space?”

There is an exercise that helps to cope with the fear of death, the Jungian analyst continues: “You need to go out, let’s say, into the street, look around and say to yourself: “This car is me! The flower is me! Heaven is me! And so, over and over again, the understanding is trained that our “I” is not only inside, but also outside. Yes, the inner dies, but the outer remains…”

Last criterion

Our experts agree that the fear of death is the stronger, the less a person has managed to realize himself. “Older people who are satisfied with their lives and realize that they have done everything they could in it are much calmer about death,” notes Inna Khamitova. “And it’s completely different when a person realizes that he has not lived his life, when he is overwhelmed by regrets about missed opportunities.”

“What does a person think about before death? Stanislav Raevsky continues. — About your finances, about your car? About the countries you wanted to visit but didn’t manage to visit? No, he is much more concerned about the essential questions: did I really love other people? Have you thought about them? Have you forgiven your enemies? The more we love others, the less our attachment to ourselves, the less painful for us the theme of death. And what a pity that these questions arise too late. But what if you start asking yourself 40 years before your death?”

However, in many countries there is such an opportunity. As part of the “Before I Die” project, on a special slate board, everyone who wants to write the phrase: “Before I die, I want …” And there are as many different desires as those who write: to get married, swim across the English Channel, have a bald cat, have sex three of us…

That is why psychologists suggest that their clients imagine that they do not have long to live – say, a year. What would they change in their lives? In fact, this is thinking about your values, priorities, about meaning.

“We are thinking that it is time to do something real, something that we have always put off, what our soul called for. The feeling of the proximity of death makes us develop and live our lives more fully, interestingly, deeply, – says Stanislav Raevsky. “And vice versa, by avoiding thoughts of death, we cut off a large part of life from ourselves.”

Face your fears

An adult is trying to meet his fear and understand it. However, many prefer to behave like children, denying their fear, running away from it. “But what we avoid will still catch up with us. If we avoid the topic of death, the anxiety will only grow,” warns Stanislav Raevsky. It can manifest itself in nightmares or masquerade as another psychological problem. And for someone it develops into horror and poisons existence.

It seems like the only thing that makes sense is to face your fear. Does this mean that we will get rid of it? No, answers Irvin Yalom: “Confrontation with death will always be accompanied by fear. Such is the price of self-consciousness.” And yet the game is worth the candle: “Having understood the conditions of human existence, we can not only fully enjoy every minute of life and appreciate the very fact of our existence, but also treat ourselves and other people with genuine compassion.”