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Fear of death
Oct. 22nd, 2003 02:41 pmHow timely that I should choose to reread A Wizard of Earthsea now, more than 25 years since my first reading. Within a few months of turning 40, I am as much aware as ever of my mortality. Ursula K. LeGuin's pithy, fantastic masterpiece explores the fear of death.
As a child I lacked an explicit belief system. My family never attended church. My father was a rationalist. Mother read me Bible stories and taught me to respect it, but we hardly discussed God. I took a casual interest in paranormal phenomena like ESP and reincarnation.
I was depressed throughout high school. I never contemplated suicide until my first year of university, and then a question prevented me: if I couldn't accept someone like myself, a homosexual, how could a perfect God accept me? I wasn't convinced of the existence of God or an afterlife, but neither did I want to take the chance of spending eternity some place more awful than here. If God rejected homosexuals, I reasoned, surely suicides were even worse. Maybe if I just accepted the Gift of Life, and got through it without giving in or giving up, that would be enough.
I was afraid of death. This fear is practically universal, and religion exploits it.
In youth we go through a phase when pride controls us more powerfully than fear. Our hormones brace us. This is more characteristic of young men than women. LeGuin's adolescent wizard Ged is fiercely proud, and hateful toward Jasper who tries to humiliate him. So determined and audacious is he to display his prowess that Ged casts a dangerous spell breaching the boundary between life and death. He thinks he's invincible.
Many young people play the same game. I can think of several different versions: drunk driving, unprotected sex, anything that risks life and well-being. The thrill proves we're alive. Some end up dead. Ged gets away with a nasty scar, a shadow haunting him, and his pride deflated, but at least he grows up quickly. Some who gamble never pay the price and keep on living arrogantly.
Religion exploits pride, too. Fundamentalist Christianity told me I had the truth. It gave me a false sense of power. The truth would set me free from fear. In fact it taught me to take life for granted. I could deny my pain, loneliness and thwarted desire, because the suffering would only last a little while. All I had to worry about was loving God. Life might be tough, but the rewards would come later.
Other religions do the same thing, ignoring the fact that life is finite. In the absence of verifiable evidence to the contrary, we must assume that consciousness will end in oblivion and silence. The fact that millions of people believe otherwise, on the grounds of contradictory arguments, proves only that dread is universal.
We are like Ged, who flees his shadow. The shadow skulks around the edges of his dreams, disturbing his sleep and making him miserable. His denial threatens the safety of those around him. Danger accompanies him, prevents him from moving forward, separates him from those he loves. He keeps running away until he realizes how fear limits and wastes his life.
Ged's hope begins when he turns and pursues his shadow. Then he begins to experience true power. His victory lies not in defeating fear, but in accepting it. Darkness and light are joined. The wizard finally becomes whole, without contradictions.
Sometimes I think I have already grappled with fear and become reconciled with death. I try to make the most of what comes my way, living in the present. Other times I realize I still have a way to go on the journey. But at least I have turned around. I'm not running away anymore. Really, victory is a continual process of finding the courage to live and die. I can turn the final page on Ged's story and he goes on living in imagination. When I turn the final page on my own story, my imagination will have finished its work.
As a child I lacked an explicit belief system. My family never attended church. My father was a rationalist. Mother read me Bible stories and taught me to respect it, but we hardly discussed God. I took a casual interest in paranormal phenomena like ESP and reincarnation.
I was depressed throughout high school. I never contemplated suicide until my first year of university, and then a question prevented me: if I couldn't accept someone like myself, a homosexual, how could a perfect God accept me? I wasn't convinced of the existence of God or an afterlife, but neither did I want to take the chance of spending eternity some place more awful than here. If God rejected homosexuals, I reasoned, surely suicides were even worse. Maybe if I just accepted the Gift of Life, and got through it without giving in or giving up, that would be enough.
I was afraid of death. This fear is practically universal, and religion exploits it.
In youth we go through a phase when pride controls us more powerfully than fear. Our hormones brace us. This is more characteristic of young men than women. LeGuin's adolescent wizard Ged is fiercely proud, and hateful toward Jasper who tries to humiliate him. So determined and audacious is he to display his prowess that Ged casts a dangerous spell breaching the boundary between life and death. He thinks he's invincible.
Many young people play the same game. I can think of several different versions: drunk driving, unprotected sex, anything that risks life and well-being. The thrill proves we're alive. Some end up dead. Ged gets away with a nasty scar, a shadow haunting him, and his pride deflated, but at least he grows up quickly. Some who gamble never pay the price and keep on living arrogantly.
Religion exploits pride, too. Fundamentalist Christianity told me I had the truth. It gave me a false sense of power. The truth would set me free from fear. In fact it taught me to take life for granted. I could deny my pain, loneliness and thwarted desire, because the suffering would only last a little while. All I had to worry about was loving God. Life might be tough, but the rewards would come later.
Other religions do the same thing, ignoring the fact that life is finite. In the absence of verifiable evidence to the contrary, we must assume that consciousness will end in oblivion and silence. The fact that millions of people believe otherwise, on the grounds of contradictory arguments, proves only that dread is universal.
We are like Ged, who flees his shadow. The shadow skulks around the edges of his dreams, disturbing his sleep and making him miserable. His denial threatens the safety of those around him. Danger accompanies him, prevents him from moving forward, separates him from those he loves. He keeps running away until he realizes how fear limits and wastes his life.
Ged's hope begins when he turns and pursues his shadow. Then he begins to experience true power. His victory lies not in defeating fear, but in accepting it. Darkness and light are joined. The wizard finally becomes whole, without contradictions.
Sometimes I think I have already grappled with fear and become reconciled with death. I try to make the most of what comes my way, living in the present. Other times I realize I still have a way to go on the journey. But at least I have turned around. I'm not running away anymore. Really, victory is a continual process of finding the courage to live and die. I can turn the final page on Ged's story and he goes on living in imagination. When I turn the final page on my own story, my imagination will have finished its work.
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