Accept death… How to achieve it?

It is still paradoxical that it is so difficult for us to accept the most certain fact of life: death. That we are all going to die is an absolute truth. No one escapes that fate and, even so, we spend a good part of our lives trying to ignore or evade it. There are those who even avoid even thoughts or conversations that have to do with death.

It hasn’t always been like this. In ancient Egypt For example, death was a daily topic. The pharaohs and notables, as well as even the slaves, dedicated a good part of their lives to preparing for death. It was usual for men of power to design their tombs with sufficient advance notice and sufficient luxury. Of course: they did not believe that life ended with physical death.

Likewise, the ancient Romans had a very telling custom. When the great generals obtained a military victory they entered the city in the middle of an alley of honor. They were cheered by everyone. However, behind them a slave had to go, repeating a phrase in their ear: “Memento mori”. This means: “Remember that you are going to die.” They didn’t want to spoil the moment, but remind you that no triumph is so great as to be above death.

Death as a desire and as a goal

The Middle Ages were the age of religious obscurantism, at least in the West. The world was seen as God’s creation and everything that happened in it had a meaning within divine logic. Death was the step that allowed an encounter with God. Life physics was just a kind of prelude to that definitive existence.

One of the most representative writings of the time is the poem “I live without living in myself”, by Saint Teresa of Ávila. The first stanza says: “I live without living in myself,/and in such a way I hope,/that I die because I do not die.”. It reflects an idea of ​​death as desire. However, the impossibility of believing that there is an end to human life persists.

Whatever it was, the truth is that death was a reality which was fully assumed. It was accepted as a fact that needed to be talked about and kept in mind. A fact that was given a symbolic explanation and for which human beings had to prepare.

Death and modernity

Science has been the bearer of great disappointments for the imagination, while at the same time it has postulated truths that many still resist today. Modernity brought with it a new flowering of science. Leonardo Da Vinci, who was at the dawn of this era, dared to do autopsies. With this he began to crack the sacred halo that gravitated over death..

The great doctors and scientists came who undertook a frontal fight against death. The topic also became a matter of science. So, one purpose of the new knowledge was to prolong life, which was now seen as a supreme good. It was also revealed that the human being was an evolved mammal and that the laws of biology also prevailed in him.

A sector of thinkers disbelieved for the first time in a God, and with it the possibility that there was something beyond physical life.. Currents of thought appeared that expressed this, but that also revealed an enormous frustration with life. Nihilism and existentialism are some of them. Those who adhered to these ways of thinking carried an attitude that was torn between disillusionment and criticism.

Facing death today

The industrial revolution brought with it mass production to which there seemed to be no limits. The end of history was proclaimed and an unprecedented technological revolution took place. Step by step we enter the world of the ephemeral, the disposable, the short life cycles, which in any case only end to begin again..

The idea of ​​death was diluted. It began to disappear from the concerns of the common man. The time for reflection has been almost completely replaced by the time for work and the pace of events barely allows us to think about how to organize the next hour. It is as if death has become a catastrophic surprise, which always takes reality by storm.

So intense is the denial of death that many even refuse to grieve once it occurs.. They try to “get out of it” quickly. Return to your routines as soon as possible. Go back to your usual worries. Pretend that it is a foreign reality, or, in any case, distant.

And what is the point of thinking about death and accepting it as an unavoidable fact? many ask. The answer lies in those depressions, anxieties or intolerances that settle like a cyst, without knowing why. Perhaps accepting nothingness, death, is an exceptional path to learning to live life. Perhaps if there is greater awareness that everything ends, underlying reasons also appear to give meaning to this day today, the only one we have.

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Images courtesy Three Sisters, Eris Carslon