The Denial of Death
Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, "The Denial of Death" is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.
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What Hacker News says
- Stop the immortality project and stop the massive suffering happening right now. People should really read "The Denial of Death".
- Read some Denial of Death and pick an immortality project that won't cause undue suffering
- People on their deathbed are not deploring their lack of discipline. In very real sense, what these people are mourning is the opposite. TFA links to another article, "The Deathbed Fallacy", which lists some of the most often mentioned regrets, namely:
It's not about having discipline. It's about enjoying our own unique human life and our world with all its possibilities. About not working the machine until we become machine-like ourselves. If I need flex some will-power muscles and employ a well-oiled personal productivity system to get me to spend time with those friends, it's either that I've become a machine, only gaining satisfaction from climbing whatever ladders my ambition set its sight on, or I'm slacking off on another important human life-task: finding and making friends which bring joy into and enrich my life.I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I wish I didn’t work so hard. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I wish that I had let myself be happier. I wish I didn't care that much for others' opinion.Yes, deathbed regrets aren't actionable self-help advice. They are confessions, really, and no, they are not cheap. They are messages from those who've reached the fifth level of relating with death, that of acceptance, whereas we're still loitering on the first one, denial [1]. They uncover something deep and painful in ourselves, they say most of us are missing something important when we are afraid to go the uncharted routes and follow the safe pre-written ones instead.
[1] "The Denial of Death" is a book worth checking out.
- See also:
The Denial of Death (1974) Ernest Becker — https://underconsumed.medium.com/the-denial-of-death-1974-er...
- Reading The Denial of Death was a particularly interesting experience to me in my early 20's and, honestly, brought a lot of peace of mind regarding my future.
- Excuse my spamminess (and for hijacking the current top comment), but I would like to recommend the innocent looking episode 162
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-43zh_za_eQ The Creation of Meaning - The Denial of Death
( transcript https://www.philosophizethis.org/transcript/episode-162-tran... )
"The Denial of Death is a 1973 book by American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker which discusses the psychological and philosophical implications of ..." clickbait! well, no, not clickbait, but death, but maybe it's the same thing? listen and you'll find out :)
