Flight From Death: The Quest For Immortality

This is a great interview. The interviewer talks to the writer of “Flight from Death.” Ernest Becker and the Denial of Death (there are two parts and hopefully a third coming out soon).

“Sacred Trees” - 2022; Whole Plate - Platinum/Palladium Print from a wet collodion negative.

On Quinn Jacobson's work "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain (Tava Kaavi): The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil:" It's a poignant reflection on the historical and psychological dimensions of land ownership, colonization, and the human experience of mortality.

Jacobson's exploration of the unconscious denial of death and its connection to historical atrocities is thought-provoking. By linking these themes to the specific landscape and history of the Rocky Mountains, where he resides, he brings a personal and localized perspective to broader existential questions.

The integration of ideas from cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker and social psychologist Sheldon Solomon adds depth to Jacobson's exploration of mortality salience and existential anxiety. It's fascinating to see how these psychological theories intersect with historical and geographical contexts in his artistic practice.

The Word "Terror" in Terror Management Theory (TMT) - Is It A Problem?

In "terror management theory," the word "terror" is used more abstractly, referring to the existential dread or fear of mortality that humans experience. It's not necessarily about immediate danger or physical threats, but rather the anxiety and discomfort associated with the awareness of our own mortality. So, while it may not align perfectly with the common usage of "terror," it's used to convey the profound psychological unease that comes with confronting the reality of death.

Recently, I was talking to someone about death anxiety and terror management theory and my interests and art (book) surrounding these topics. The conversation was fairly straightforward. In the end, they didn’t care for the word “terror” in “terror management theory.” They implied that it was a poor choice of words and that it was too much—a kind of turn-off. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to me, but this time I wanted to defend it. I had to think about it for a while but came up with the first paragraph of the post about the word terror in TMT.

“Imagine you’re afraid of dying. Terror management theory says we deal with this fear by holding onto beliefs and values that give our lives meaning, like religion or cultural traditions, and by boosting our self-esteem. Basically, we distract ourselves from the scary thought of death by focusing on things that make us feel good about ourselves and our place in the world.”

Terror is defined as “a state of intense or overwhelming fear.” I’m not sure about you, but that’s a pretty good definition for the way I feel about my death (slowly trying to come to terms with it). We all feel terrified about dying. Specifically, we want to be remembered, and we want our lives to have meant something (personal significance). We are worried about those we leave behind, or that our lives didn’t really mean much while we were here. Those are very difficult ideas to assimilate and accommodate. We need to find meaning and significance, and if we’re lucky enough to find those, we need to hold onto them and reinforce them in our lives every day. We feel this way because we are humans and we have the unique knowledge that we are going to die.

Agreed Madness

It’s our “one month” anniversary today. We’ve been in New Mexico for 30 days, and man, time has whizzed by!!

Between unpacking boxes and running household errands, I’ve been slowly getting back on track to work on my book. I get excited about the thought of actually completing this work. It’s no longer a hope or dream; it’s close to becoming a reality.

“Man literally drives himself into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, and personal preoccupations so far removed from the reality of his situation that they are forms of madness—agreed madness, shared madness, disguised and dignified madness, but madness all the same.”

— Ernest Becker, Denial of Death

These theories seem simple on the surface, but it takes some deep thinking and evaluation to really understand them and, moreover, to apply them to your life. My hope is that by sharing these ideas and concepts in a book, it will inspire people (especially artists) to engage with these theories and start to share them through their art.

I wrote a while ago about someone asking me if there was a movement in art around “death anxiety.” In other words, Becker’s and Solomon's (et al.) theories could form an entire art movement based on the theories dealing with death anxiety and terror management. This is what happened in existential psychology. There are people working on PhDs in terror management theory and have been for years; why not art? Not unlike impressionism, cubism, dada, etc.

In a lot of ways, all art does address these ideas, but rarely intentionally or consciously. It’s food for thought and a wonderful way to get people to engage with these ideas.

Importance of Creativity

"Both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an external, active, work project. The neurotic can’t marshal this creative response embodied in a specific work, and so he chokes on his introversions.

The only way to work on perfection is in the form of an objective work that is fully under your control and is perfectible in some real ways. Either you eat up yourself and others around you, trying for perfection; or you objectify that imperfection in a work, on which you then unleash your creative powers. In this sense, some kind of objective creativity is the only answer man has to the problem of life.

The creative person becomes, in art, literature, and religion, the mediator of natural terror and the indicator of a new way to triumph over it. He reveals the darkness and the dread of the human condition and fabricates a new symbolic transcendence over it. This has been the function of the creative deviant from the shamans through Shakespeare.

Otto Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, and his isolation from the cultural world-view that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. The neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create." Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

From the Rocky Mountains to the Chihuahua Desert

We’ve been here just over a week now. So far, we love it. I mean, everything fits and feels good, and we are excited about the future here.

There’s still a lot of work to do, including unpacking, organizing, figuring things out, etc. It’s a process, not an event. We’re on no one’s clock except our own. It’s a wonderful feeling to have a beautiful climate, time to do whatever you want to do, and easy access to most anything you’d need or want. I want to remember how grateful I am for this; I don’t ever want to become desensitized to it. I really appreciate it beyond words.

Jeanne and I trekked out onto some trails behind our house today. We did almost 3 miles and really enjoyed it. There are trails everywhere around here to walk or bicycle on; someone told Jeanne today that there’s one about 2 miles from us that goes south all the way to El Paso, Texas. Wild!

I found myself inspired today by the color and shapes in the desert. I want to paint some of these ideas and start making paint sketches again. And I’m looking forward to getting my darkroom setup again and making some photographs.

Once I’m organized, I’ll begin working on my book again. I really feel like I might be able to finish it this year. That’s my goal. I think with the better environment here, I’ll have more time to devote to it and really make it what I know it can be. About 90% of the writing is complete; it just needs to be edited. And the photography is complete, unless I end up adding anything here. That could happen; I’m not really sure at this point. And I have several paintings that I may include. So, it’s just a matter of carving out time and making it happen. And it will!

We Have Left the Mountain-Hello New Mexico!

I haven’t posted here for over a month for a good reason. We sold our house in the mountains of Colorado and moved to the desert of southern New Mexico!

For the past 6 weeks or even longer, we’ve been packing, selling, giving away, and throwing things away. It’s been a long process, but we are beyond happy that we made the move. We have a beautiful property here (at the base of the Organ Mountains) and the weather is gorgeous! I know it gets hot here in the summer, but we have mitigated for the hot days, no problem.

So why did we move? It’s a fair question. We entered our fourth year there this year. We loved it. We thrived there. Our lives changed for the better. It’s such a beautiful place, too. However, the winters were getting very long and cold. It seemed we chopped and hauled wood 10 months out of the year. The snow came down hard this year too. We had over 40” of snow just two weeks ago and we literally snowed in for four days. You put all of that with the remoteness of the property and you find yourself wanting more freedom for more months of the year. I want to paint, write and do photography. I don’t want to do much else other than spend time with Jeanne doing walks, cooking, and exploring southern New Mexico. I had to shut my studio/darkroom down in Colorado from October to June every year. Here, I can work all year, no problem. We have modern conveniences again, too. We don’t have to drive two hours for groceries or wait a week for a delivery. Super convenient here. I’m really happy about that. Those are some of the reasons we made the change.

We are close to Mexico here and want to travel there often once we’re settled. I have some inspiration for photography and painting, too. We live about 10–12 minutes from a university; I may reach out to them in the future as well. We’ll see. There are a lot of possibilities, which is very exciting for us.

Jeanne snapped this photo of me on our walk today. We live very close to this spot and can see the Organ Mountains from our house—a wonderful sight.

Quinn and Jeanne in Old Mesilla buying green chile and pecans.

Radical Mindfulness Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital

This is a book by Dr. James Rowe that I would recommend reading if you want to understand what I’m trying to address through my artwork and my life in general (my interests). He is addressing Ernest Becker’s theories and terror management directly. I’ve never seen anyone write about the results of death anxiety applied to politics and modern and historical problems directly. My book will address these theories in detail, but I’ve made it personal. I’ve explained how the theories have driven me both creatively and psychologically.

Radical Mindfulness examines the root causes of injustice, asking why inequalities along the lines of race, class, gender, and species continue to exist. Specifically, Dr. James K. Rowe examines fear of death as a root cause of systemic inequalities and proposes a more embodied approach to social change as a solution.

Collecting insights from powerful thinkers across multiple traditions—including black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists—Rowe argues for the political importance of seemingly apolitical practices such as meditation and ritual. These tactics are insufficient on their own, but when included in social movements fighting structural injustices, mind-body practices can start to transform the embodied fears that give supremacist ideologies endless fuel while remaining unaffected by most political actors.

Radical Mindfulness is for academics, activists, and individuals who want to overcome supremacy of all kinds but are struggling to understand and develop methods for attacking it at its roots.

Roger Ebert's Dying Words

Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. I used to watch and read his reviews of movies. Generally speaking, I agreed most of the time with his critiques. Sometime ago, I heard that Roger Ebert’s wife, Chaz, talked about Roger’s last words. He died of cancer in 2013.

“Life is but a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

— Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

Clem Snide released an album called "Forever Just Beyond." The lead track on the album, “Roger Ebert,” is especially arresting. The late film critic's wife, Chaz, recalled Roger Ebert's final words in a letter to her, which served as the basis for the lyrics. As the song puts it:

Did you know these were Roger Ebert’s dying words?

It’s all an elaborate hoax

It’s all an elaborate hoax

There is a vastness that can’t be contained

Or described as a thought in the flesh of our brain

It’s everything, everywhere, future and past

Dissolving forever in an eternal flash.

It’s all an elaborate hoax

It’s all an elaborate hoax

Chaz Ebert wrote, "The one thing people might be surprised about—Roger said that he didn’t know if he could believe in God. He had his doubts. But toward the end, something really interesting happened. That week before Roger passed away, I would see him, and he would talk about having visited this other place. I thought he was hallucinating. I thought they were giving him too much medication. But the day before he passed away, he wrote me a note: “This is all an elaborate hoax.” I asked him, “What’s a hoax?” And he was talking about this world and this place. He said it was all an illusion. I thought he was just confused. But he was not confused. He wasn’t visiting heaven, not the way we think of heaven. He described it as a vastness that you can’t even imagine. It was a place where the past, present, and future were happening all at once."

“Circles, Squares, and Triangles,” 3.75” x 5” acrylic and charcoal on paper.

Life as a Balancing Act

I’m sitting in a motel room at 0600 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as I write this. I’m down here looking for a property that Jeanne and I can call home for a while.

It’s nice here. It’s a small, “big” city. When I arrived yesterday at 2 p.m., it was 70F (21C) and sunny. It was wonderful driving around with my windows down in the middle of February! It’s close to Mexico, too. We like that (I know it’s scary to some people; we’re not that way). We hope to be here in the first week of April. I’m excited about the idea of not going through another high-altitude winter. Even saying that makes me warm ;-)

As I contemplate these properties and what we want in a home and property, it reminds me of the balancing act of life itself. How many chances do you take? Do you ever roll the dice and see what happens? Or do you always play it safe? There are no definite answers; like most things in life, it’s dependent on the individual. We’re all different, with different needs and different worldviews. I do know that for every advantage, there is a disadvantage. You have to weigh these factors and come up with a solution where you find the advantages more important than the disadvantages. In other words, nothing is perfect, and you always have to compromise. That includes our lives and the situations we are faced with—specifically, our mortality. Make the most of every day. Take some chances, do something different, and feel alive; we only get a short time here; make the most of it. Try to show love to the people that are important in your life, have gratitude every morning you wake up, be in awe of nature, and humble yourself enough to see your cosmic insignificance. It helps, and it puts every day above ground in perspective.

Wish me luck. I’m headed back to Colorado tomorrow. We hope to make an offer on a property here today. We’ll see what happens.

Existential Distress No. 3

“If you kill a cockroach, you are a hero, if you kill a butterfly, you are bad. Morality has aesthetic standards.”

— Nietzsche

Isn’t it strange that we all have to deal with our ending? Some try to never think about it and will do almost anything to avoid thinking about it. Others incorporate it into their personal belief system or religious beliefs (Buddhists, for example). While I’m not "religious,” I’ve made an effort to think about my mortality every day.

For me, art drives that type of meditation or thinking. I do a lot of it on my daily walks, too. Knowing that I’m going to die and that I have limited time here brings me closer to the things and people that I love and care about. It comforts me and reassures me of my humanity. It provides a type of gratitude, awe, and humbleness. And it puts my perspective in balance—my cosmic insignificance is in full view.

The reason I do it is simple: it reminds me to take every day as a gift. It makes the sweet sweeter and the bitter not so bad. It’s not morbid or neurotic; it’s valuable and important for me; it’s a very positive thing, nothing negative at all. C. S. Lewis said, “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” That resonates with me. I’m a truth-seeker. I try to keep my worldview based on reality, and I try to avoid fantasies and fiction.

When was the last time you thought about not being here? What did you feel? Did it make you uneasy? Create anxiety? If it did, do you know why?

Existential Distress No. 1 and No. 2

“The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.”

― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Existential Distress No. 2," 5" x 3.75" acrylic, charcoal, and oil (mixed media) on paper.