Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Distraction
Dialogue-Ron & Ken
This continues a previous post 'The perils of distraction' - August 2014. I wanted Ken to clarify his position on distraction. He seemed to think it both ubiquitous and a constant.
K. Almost from the start people distract themselves from the inevitability of their own death.
Culture is itself a distraction...in the widest sense...any activity may be considered distracting, sometimes creative, sometimes not. Cultural artefacts may be seen as attempts to gain some form of immortality.
R. Distraction is a negative term.
K. I object to distraction when it is an unexamined avoidance of our finitude. For example, religious or faith based fervour seems to me to be an emotional avoidance of a rational or realist approach to the big questions.
R. Fundamentally you seem concerned about acknowledgement, of what?
K. Personal mortality.
R. If it were then what?
K. Plastic surgery out of business. A radical change in what we call narcissism. Potential for the individual who wants to be special and to tell others about that status, which is the basis of social networks, to revoke the omnipotent “I don’t want to be thought of as just another temporary being”
R. Why might acknowledging one’s mortality be incompatible with having facial features altered? Why does one rule out the other?
K. Distraction is pretending. As a culture we pretend that there are paths to immortality. Religion, or artistic creativity - so what I create will live after me, or I will have 10 children - thus guaranteeing immortality as my genes will spread etc. All of that is a denial of finitude and one’s insignificance in cosmic terms. Think of Brian Cox’s Human Universe where he demonstrates the unimaginable dimensions of space and time.
R. I do not get that. I do not know why almost the reverse could not be true. It might be precisely because of one’s finitude that I am going to have 10 children.
K. But that is different because that is acknowledging it, acknowledging one’s finitude.
R. There is a shift then. What you are saying is not that everything is a distraction but that if people are in denial of their mortality then they seek distraction.
I am not even sure about that. Because I am not sure what they are avoiding. And what difference it makes.
K. I think they are avoiding terror.
R. Terror?
K. Terror, fear of their own death.
R. I think that there is here something that is almost impossible to think about. You seem to be saying this is what people ought to be doing. You make it seem like a moral wrong. But I do not really know what difference acknowledging it or not makes.
Also I am not sure what acknowledging it quite means. I am not sure what precisely is acknowledged, or is to be acknowledged. It is not just the thought I am going to die. It must be more than that. Everybody knows that.
K. They might know in a cognitive sense. But they often don’t accept it at an emotional level.
R. What do you mean by that? I am not sure what is not accepted. Conversely were one to accept that I am not sure what difference that makes.
K. If someone accepts it both at emotional and cognitive levels - that their life is finite - then they can either sink into a deep depression, because there is no point in anything, or become active in something that is not grandiose.
R. Why is there no point in anything.
K. Because they could be dead tomorrow.
R. But why does that make for no point?
K. Because in order to create something you have to plan, and in order to plan you have to look ahead, and if there is not time enough then there is no point in doing anything. So If someone thinks there is no point or no significance to human life anyway then he can easily sink into a depression or he can say, as most do, while I have life there is hope.
I want to go back to something else. To the march in Paris, the march against the terrorists or against terror. I think that march symbolised acknowledgment. They said we are not going to pretend it does not exist. We could be shot because that is what happened to others. It is an acknowledgement of vulnerability, of mortality. Instead of going to the movies, they decided to walk in large numbers. That is interesting to me in terms of terror. They were acknowledging terror. That is what distraction is about at an individual level. I think that people distract themselves because they are terribly frightened of their demise and what follows from their demise is their insignificance. We are essentially roadkill. There is a machine on the road that does not care about us at all, and it is called death. And because we get terribly frightened we say, I don’t want to think about it, so I will distract myself. I shall visit the grandchildren, do a new painting, I will go the movies or go shopping, because I don’t want to think about it. And if someone says, why don’t you want to think about it, the answer is “It is too awful!”
R. You are a pessimist. I guess what you are saying is that life is terrible or there is constant terror.
K. Fatalistic is closer to what I mean than pessimistic.
R. Fatalism that has a bearing on options in life. The image you have of this road machine is a terrifying one. You suggest that people may try to avoid this machine but they can’t. Your position does denigrate culture. One has spent all those years creating beautiful stained glass windows and there is the machine.
In this conversation I am reminded of the Socratic injunction - ’the unexamined life is not worth living’ If one wants to live a valuable life then one has to examine oneself and examine one’s values and one can’t do that without taking into account one’s own mortality.
K. If someone is not prepared to think about their own death, their
own non being then they are suffering under an illusion, and it is an illusion to do with continuation. And that is false.
So the consequence of each position is what really matters.
R. So you think that someone not acknowledging their mortality is under the illusion that they will last forever.
K. Yes, and the consequence of that is that they are very likely to become more narcissistic because they think of themselves as special, they are like the soldier who goes into battle thinking that my friends might get killed but I won’t. It is that illusion I am referring to, the illusion of immortality of some kind. We reward it in battle. The narcissist sees himself as special and that is in the line of immortality. If somebody does not acknowledge their own mortality they are much more likely to be grandiose and if they have a scheme that attempts to advance themselves over others and it fails they suffer humiliation. And that is the worst thing that can happen to a narcissist. Whereas someone who is not narcissistic and not under the illusion of immortality in some form, is much more likely to be humble and therefore is not going to be grandiose but that does not mean he can’t be productive or creative or imaginative etc. Let’s take one example from culture. The film, the movie, sometimes someone can go to a movie because they do not want to think about anything else like their cat has died or something else that is unpleasant, and thus they seek distraction. Someone else might go to the movie and think I am going to this because I think it might be an enriching experience. It is the same movie but different attitudes are brought to it.
This continues a previous post 'The perils of distraction' - August 2014. I wanted Ken to clarify his position on distraction. He seemed to think it both ubiquitous and a constant.
K. Almost from the start people distract themselves from the inevitability of their own death.
Culture is itself a distraction...in the widest sense...any activity may be considered distracting, sometimes creative, sometimes not. Cultural artefacts may be seen as attempts to gain some form of immortality.
R. Distraction is a negative term.
K. I object to distraction when it is an unexamined avoidance of our finitude. For example, religious or faith based fervour seems to me to be an emotional avoidance of a rational or realist approach to the big questions.
R. Fundamentally you seem concerned about acknowledgement, of what?
K. Personal mortality.
R. If it were then what?
K. Plastic surgery out of business. A radical change in what we call narcissism. Potential for the individual who wants to be special and to tell others about that status, which is the basis of social networks, to revoke the omnipotent “I don’t want to be thought of as just another temporary being”
R. Why might acknowledging one’s mortality be incompatible with having facial features altered? Why does one rule out the other?
K. Distraction is pretending. As a culture we pretend that there are paths to immortality. Religion, or artistic creativity - so what I create will live after me, or I will have 10 children - thus guaranteeing immortality as my genes will spread etc. All of that is a denial of finitude and one’s insignificance in cosmic terms. Think of Brian Cox’s Human Universe where he demonstrates the unimaginable dimensions of space and time.
R. I do not get that. I do not know why almost the reverse could not be true. It might be precisely because of one’s finitude that I am going to have 10 children.
K. But that is different because that is acknowledging it, acknowledging one’s finitude.
R. There is a shift then. What you are saying is not that everything is a distraction but that if people are in denial of their mortality then they seek distraction.
I am not even sure about that. Because I am not sure what they are avoiding. And what difference it makes.
K. I think they are avoiding terror.
R. Terror?
K. Terror, fear of their own death.
R. I think that there is here something that is almost impossible to think about. You seem to be saying this is what people ought to be doing. You make it seem like a moral wrong. But I do not really know what difference acknowledging it or not makes.
Also I am not sure what acknowledging it quite means. I am not sure what precisely is acknowledged, or is to be acknowledged. It is not just the thought I am going to die. It must be more than that. Everybody knows that.
K. They might know in a cognitive sense. But they often don’t accept it at an emotional level.
R. What do you mean by that? I am not sure what is not accepted. Conversely were one to accept that I am not sure what difference that makes.
K. If someone accepts it both at emotional and cognitive levels - that their life is finite - then they can either sink into a deep depression, because there is no point in anything, or become active in something that is not grandiose.
R. Why is there no point in anything.
K. Because they could be dead tomorrow.
R. But why does that make for no point?
K. Because in order to create something you have to plan, and in order to plan you have to look ahead, and if there is not time enough then there is no point in doing anything. So If someone thinks there is no point or no significance to human life anyway then he can easily sink into a depression or he can say, as most do, while I have life there is hope.
I want to go back to something else. To the march in Paris, the march against the terrorists or against terror. I think that march symbolised acknowledgment. They said we are not going to pretend it does not exist. We could be shot because that is what happened to others. It is an acknowledgement of vulnerability, of mortality. Instead of going to the movies, they decided to walk in large numbers. That is interesting to me in terms of terror. They were acknowledging terror. That is what distraction is about at an individual level. I think that people distract themselves because they are terribly frightened of their demise and what follows from their demise is their insignificance. We are essentially roadkill. There is a machine on the road that does not care about us at all, and it is called death. And because we get terribly frightened we say, I don’t want to think about it, so I will distract myself. I shall visit the grandchildren, do a new painting, I will go the movies or go shopping, because I don’t want to think about it. And if someone says, why don’t you want to think about it, the answer is “It is too awful!”
R. You are a pessimist. I guess what you are saying is that life is terrible or there is constant terror.
K. Fatalistic is closer to what I mean than pessimistic.
R. Fatalism that has a bearing on options in life. The image you have of this road machine is a terrifying one. You suggest that people may try to avoid this machine but they can’t. Your position does denigrate culture. One has spent all those years creating beautiful stained glass windows and there is the machine.
In this conversation I am reminded of the Socratic injunction - ’the unexamined life is not worth living’ If one wants to live a valuable life then one has to examine oneself and examine one’s values and one can’t do that without taking into account one’s own mortality.
K. If someone is not prepared to think about their own death, their
own non being then they are suffering under an illusion, and it is an illusion to do with continuation. And that is false.
So the consequence of each position is what really matters.
R. So you think that someone not acknowledging their mortality is under the illusion that they will last forever.
K. Yes, and the consequence of that is that they are very likely to become more narcissistic because they think of themselves as special, they are like the soldier who goes into battle thinking that my friends might get killed but I won’t. It is that illusion I am referring to, the illusion of immortality of some kind. We reward it in battle. The narcissist sees himself as special and that is in the line of immortality. If somebody does not acknowledge their own mortality they are much more likely to be grandiose and if they have a scheme that attempts to advance themselves over others and it fails they suffer humiliation. And that is the worst thing that can happen to a narcissist. Whereas someone who is not narcissistic and not under the illusion of immortality in some form, is much more likely to be humble and therefore is not going to be grandiose but that does not mean he can’t be productive or creative or imaginative etc. Let’s take one example from culture. The film, the movie, sometimes someone can go to a movie because they do not want to think about anything else like their cat has died or something else that is unpleasant, and thus they seek distraction. Someone else might go to the movie and think I am going to this because I think it might be an enriching experience. It is the same movie but different attitudes are brought to it.
- R. To be continued…...
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Death's deferral
The waning days of our lives are given over to treatments that addle our brains and sap our bodies for a sliver’s chance of benefit. They are spent in institutions—nursing homes and intensive care units—where regimented, anonymous routines cut us off from all the things that matter to us in life. Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.
from Being Mortal by Atul Gawande seen in NYRB A better way out
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Perils of falling
A recent report in the New York times says :
' My sister Beth just a few weeks ago fell in her apartment and lay on
the floor for 30 hours before her son came and found her. She had a heart attack during her time on the floor so she could not get up to use the phone to call for help. She was not wearing an alarm button nor did she have a mobile phone in her cardigan pocket.'
Just her bad luck? How many stories like this one?
Old elephants walk into the forest to die alone, perhaps to spare their relatives the witnessing.
Is Beth's story the human version, alone in her apartment, cut off from
relatives and the life outside her door? We know of examples of old
people who die in their houses and lie undiscovered for months or even
years.
The elephant in the room:
The extended family model where the generations live together is foreign to Western Societies, so we have alienation, aloneness, atomised families and the austerity politics that reduce social services. Our societies don't know what to do about these soloists, who choose to play their dirges by themselves.
Sometimes they freeze for lack of heat, or dehydrate and die in heatwaves.
We interfere with the natural process, whereby one of us who can no longer keep up with the
herd is left behind.
Now we cosset such old people in places called 'Assisted Living'.
Perhaps 'assisted dying' would be more relevant.
' My sister Beth just a few weeks ago fell in her apartment and lay on
the floor for 30 hours before her son came and found her. She had a heart attack during her time on the floor so she could not get up to use the phone to call for help. She was not wearing an alarm button nor did she have a mobile phone in her cardigan pocket.'
Just her bad luck? How many stories like this one?
Old elephants walk into the forest to die alone, perhaps to spare their relatives the witnessing.
Is Beth's story the human version, alone in her apartment, cut off from
relatives and the life outside her door? We know of examples of old
people who die in their houses and lie undiscovered for months or even
years.
The elephant in the room:
The extended family model where the generations live together is foreign to Western Societies, so we have alienation, aloneness, atomised families and the austerity politics that reduce social services. Our societies don't know what to do about these soloists, who choose to play their dirges by themselves.
Sometimes they freeze for lack of heat, or dehydrate and die in heatwaves.
We interfere with the natural process, whereby one of us who can no longer keep up with the
herd is left behind.
Now we cosset such old people in places called 'Assisted Living'.
Perhaps 'assisted dying' would be more relevant.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Where we all fall down
Getting on the escalator going up is ok, but going down is not. Old eyes search for something easily visible that appears to be level and substantial, and disappearing steps don't cut it.
Wide painted lines on pavements and floors can be deceptive. Do they signal a step, a hollow, a decline, a change of level? There's always the fear of a misstep. It's about failing depth perception, or balance, or both.
The step that wasn't there, the grab for a support that missed, the crunch on the way down, the sudden impact of a hard surface.
The fractured this or that, the ambulance, the hospital, the rehab, the lost confidence.
Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death in the over 65 age group - and the numbers have doubled in the last decade. Well of course, the population is ageing isn't it?
The other fear is losing independence, causing many of the old refusing to wear an alarm pendant. ' They just don't want to accept that they are in mortal danger if they have an injurious fall when they are on their own'
It's denial again. "Of course I'm not going to fall over - you think I'm senile?"
That's until the first fall provides an inconvenient truth.
Wide painted lines on pavements and floors can be deceptive. Do they signal a step, a hollow, a decline, a change of level? There's always the fear of a misstep. It's about failing depth perception, or balance, or both.
The step that wasn't there, the grab for a support that missed, the crunch on the way down, the sudden impact of a hard surface.
The fractured this or that, the ambulance, the hospital, the rehab, the lost confidence.
Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death in the over 65 age group - and the numbers have doubled in the last decade. Well of course, the population is ageing isn't it?
The other fear is losing independence, causing many of the old refusing to wear an alarm pendant. ' They just don't want to accept that they are in mortal danger if they have an injurious fall when they are on their own'
It's denial again. "Of course I'm not going to fall over - you think I'm senile?"
That's until the first fall provides an inconvenient truth.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Old age self centredness
The usual definition of narcissism is self-love. We tend to think of this as intrinsic to the personality or temperament of an individual; in which case context is irrelevant. But in old age temperament cedes to context. What is common in old age, as friends and family members die, is self-absorption. It is as if survival is the greatest achievement and this is always the topic for the self. What is it to be absorbed in oneself in this way?
The consequence of this absorption for some is the creation of a paranoiac system. That is one based on hostility, hostility towards others as a way of still feeling special. For example, “ The nurses here are stealing things from me.” This ensures the centrality of the self. Erecting a system like this is seen as the only way to maintain the survival of the self-image in a contracting personal world.
There is an alternative process, which can be thought of as narcissistic depletion. Here over time the narcissism diminishes as the individual does. He/she may give up, lose energy, feel abject and hopeless. This may take a long time, but it is the image of someone dying as you witness their leaving. They are here, and then gone. Without a word. No fuss!
“Slipping away” as Billy Connolly says.
The consequence of this absorption for some is the creation of a paranoiac system. That is one based on hostility, hostility towards others as a way of still feeling special. For example, “ The nurses here are stealing things from me.” This ensures the centrality of the self. Erecting a system like this is seen as the only way to maintain the survival of the self-image in a contracting personal world.
There is an alternative process, which can be thought of as narcissistic depletion. Here over time the narcissism diminishes as the individual does. He/she may give up, lose energy, feel abject and hopeless. This may take a long time, but it is the image of someone dying as you witness their leaving. They are here, and then gone. Without a word. No fuss!
“Slipping away” as Billy Connolly says.
Ruminating on an illusion
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - Kierkegaard
Is one of the abject aspects of old age, of retirement, a re-evaluating of one's past? Ruminating on a life lived professionally in an environment that subsequently appears a fundamental mistake leads to what? Freedom, despair? If the response is freedom, is it a real freedom? Might that be an illusion?
Is one of the abject aspects of old age, of retirement, a re-evaluating of one's past? Ruminating on a life lived professionally in an environment that subsequently appears a fundamental mistake leads to what? Freedom, despair? If the response is freedom, is it a real freedom? Might that be an illusion?
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