This unit exposed me to the extent we try to separate ourselves from the dead in our current society. It made me question where this general fear of the dead had stemmed from because it isn’t necessarily the healthiest way to approach death. My belief is that our fear of death originates from the human instinct of our bodies resisting death as much as possible. For example, if I hold my breath for long enough my body will eventually force me to inhale. When we see that other people have passed away, it reminds us that our bodies could ultimately fail us no matter how much it tries to resist death.
A crow approaches a woman's car while she was driving down the highway. Completely shocked by the crow she swerves to the side of the road and gets out of the car. The crow then begins to pick at her face and grab at her scalp. She ends up laid out on the side of the road with her face greatly disfigured and bloody and the crow flies away. A huge truck starts to drive down the highway and the woman builds up her strength to walk right in front of it. This is a scene from a film I watched over the weekend that sparked my current theory. I wondered what possessed this woman to go against the human instinct and commit suicide. I also wondered how that added to the fearful aspect of the movie.
The conscious desire to stay alive is derived from the human and animal instinct. Even when it is a conscious decision to harm oneself, the body physically does what it can to resist ones actions. To overcome that the conscious desire must be strong enough to overpower the urge to stay alive. I gave an example of how the body does this in the first paragraph. There are many other intuitions the human body has been built up to avoid death such as a question of taste, fear itself, etc.
The desire to stay alive is institutionalized in us from the moment we can breathe. Surrounding ourselves with death is a conscious reminder that our bodies cannot always fulfil this desire. The more we separate ourselves from death and support a current system that handles death in a similar way plumbing handles excrement, the higher the belief that we above death raises. So, when we are finally faced with it we feel extremely weak and ashamed by our grievances.
A crow approaches a woman's car while she was driving down the highway. Completely shocked by the crow she swerves to the side of the road and gets out of the car. The crow then begins to pick at her face and grab at her scalp. She ends up laid out on the side of the road with her face greatly disfigured and bloody and the crow flies away. A huge truck starts to drive down the highway and the woman builds up her strength to walk right in front of it. This is a scene from a film I watched over the weekend that sparked my current theory. I wondered what possessed this woman to go against the human instinct and commit suicide. I also wondered how that added to the fearful aspect of the movie.
The conscious desire to stay alive is derived from the human and animal instinct. Even when it is a conscious decision to harm oneself, the body physically does what it can to resist ones actions. To overcome that the conscious desire must be strong enough to overpower the urge to stay alive. I gave an example of how the body does this in the first paragraph. There are many other intuitions the human body has been built up to avoid death such as a question of taste, fear itself, etc.
The desire to stay alive is institutionalized in us from the moment we can breathe. Surrounding ourselves with death is a conscious reminder that our bodies cannot always fulfil this desire. The more we separate ourselves from death and support a current system that handles death in a similar way plumbing handles excrement, the higher the belief that we above death raises. So, when we are finally faced with it we feel extremely weak and ashamed by our grievances.
I thought the line "When we see that other people have passed away, it reminds us that our bodies could ultimately fail us no matter how much it tries to resist death" was very interesting and thought provoking. I began to actually think of different ways that our bodies resist death. The story was very interesting and stuck in my head after i finished the post.
ReplyDeleteI thought this post was beautifully written, especially the last paragraph. Your writing was very descriptive, and I could visualize the woman swerving over in her car. I agree that people are in denial over the fact that they will die someday, but when they realize they will, they feel ashamed.
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