A constant theme throughout human existence is that of death. As yet we have no technology which can truly prevent death, we can do naught but stave off this inevitable end. While fearing or considering this inevitability may avail us little, many spend much of their lives wondering what will remain of them when they die. For many individuals, the awareness of the inevitability of their death guides their actions throughout their lives.

As discussed in The Worm at the Core, humans are rather unique in their self-awareness and ability to consider temporally disconnected events. While there are many truly wonderful outcomes to these abilities, they have also inspired terror and superstition in many. If one disconnects from their current position and considers larger periods of time, a certain theme becomes evident. They are almost certain to die within the equivalent of a blink of an eye, in only a few billion years a supernova will occur in our local star system and consume the Earth, eventually followed by the universe eventually achieving a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, rendering life as we know it all but impossible. As such, death may seem omnipresent, the only surety in our lives.

This awareness of death is identified in The Worm at the Core as the downside of human intelligent, for the natural response to an imminent or perceived death is that of terror. It is hardly a surprise then, that some among us find themselves consumed by terror in the face of such omnipresent death, and as such seek a means to escape this terror. For some, this is found in superstition postulating continued existence after death, for others it is found in a more symbolic immortality through contribution to a society or culture we believe will substantially outlive us. While we as individuals typically have a limited ability to influence history, we can still contribute to a culture or society, and while we may not be remembered, the work we contributed may survive.

This pursuit of symbolic immortality as a means to leave something of ourselves in the world after we die has proven an intriguing idea which I have linked to many fascinating occurrences in history. Such an awareness has helped me to understand occurrences throughout history, from Bismarck’s devotion to the creation of a unified Germany in the face of an existential cultural threat to the same acting as the cause of the Peloponnesian War.

References:
Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life.

The The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder