Have you read The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Tolstoy? Ivan Ilyich is mean-spirited bureaucrat dying in agony, stumbles upon a stunning insight at the very end of his life: He realizes he’s dying so badly because he has lived so badly. His insight begets a great personal change, and in his last days his life is flooded with a peace and meaningfulness that he had never achieved previously! Many other great works of literature contain a similar message. For example in TheWar and Peace Piere, the protagonist is transformed after a last-second reprieve from a firing squad. Scrooge in A Christmas Carol does not suddenly become a good man because of Yuletide cheer; rather because the spirit of future allows him to see his own death and the strangers squabbling over his possessions.
While riding my bike today, I came upon this matter that the message in all these works is simple and profound: Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death might save us. This is what I absolutely agree with existentialists.
We human beings appear to be meaning-seeking creatures that have had the misfortune of being thrown in to the world devoid of intrinsic meaning. One of our major tasks in life is to find a meaning sturdy enough to support a life, moreover, to perform the tricky maneuver of our denying our personal authorship of this meaning! Interesting, huh? Thus we conclude it was “out there” waiting for us. Our ongoing search for substantial meaning systems often throws us into crises of meaning-hence more individuals seek therapy. What do you think? How do you picture meaning in your life? How do you perceive death?
