Author Archives: wlillian

Course Synthesis: Leaning Into Fear

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I almost dropped this course a few times. Especially towards the beginning, it was deeply uncomfortable for me to spend such long periods of time thinking about death, dying, and environmental destruction. I was often overwhelmed by feelings of impending doom and sorrow.

And this was how I initially felt about my action project as well. Although I had worked somewhat with the Animal Rights Initiative before, the extensive research we were tasked with opened my eyes to the sheer scale of animal suffering on this planet. It was already painful for me to think about the plights of suffering humans. And, by intentionally expanding my circle of empathy to the roughly 60 billion land animals raised in factory farms each year, that pain greatly increased. It was depressing and infuriating to spend so much time doing research on such mass amounts of suffering. I became angry and disillusioned with the way in which society tolerated these mass amounts of violence. As author Timothy Pachirat writes in “Working Undercover in a Slaughterhouse,” an interview with Avi Solomon, the globally affluent live in a system that requires the “active complicity in forms of exploitation and violence.”

However, I soon found calm in the contemplative practices. In these, I was purposefully leaning into the fear I felt instead of shying away from it. I learned to accept and embrace my anxiety, which in turn, calmed me. I experienced similar feelings of catharsis in the advocacy involved in my action project. Even though the problem of industrialized animal agriculture is unfathomably large, it felt good to have a part in helping address it, especially because I was working in a team of others who cared. Throughout the course, those two coping strategies became my lifeline while wading through difficult course content and dealing with death in my own life.

This image is a draft of the Animal Rights Initiative logo, which depicts a group of volunteers passing out literature on the animal rights and welfare movements. The underlaid image of the volunteers brings me so much joy because I think it encapsulates the feeling I had working with my group in the action project. It is a beautiful feeling to work on a team of passionate people, even against a seemingly insurmountable problem.

Contemplation as an Antidote to Fear

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These days, I’m some form of anxious or scared almost all of the time. And while I could chalk this up to an anxiety disorder, or some other deep-seated biochemical imbalance, I think that it has more to do with what I study. 

For the past few years, I’ve spent most of my days thinking about death, dying, and endings. In my classes, we talk about climate change, which many of my professors and classmates theorize will lead to the fall of our civilization. After school, I go to the geoarchaeology lab and pick through the remains of a society that has fallen, trying to understand my ancestors from 60,000 years ago. I think about the shaky undergraduate assistant who may, 60,000 years from now, pick apart my life, and try to understand why my civilization has fallen. She’ll analyze every mistake we’ve made and every sign we’ve ignored. And of course, these thoughts of societal death follow me home.

This deep-seated fear I hold over the inevitable fall of our civilization can get overwhelming, and contemplative practices have been incredibly useful to me in managing this. I was scared at first, because I thought that thinking more deeply about death, in a space with no distractions, would worsen my anxiety. And, initially it did–the first few contemplative practices I participated in left me feeling off-kilter and overwhelmed.

But, over the past few weeks, contemplation on death has become my form of terror management–the concept described in Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski’s “The Worm at the Core,” as the way in which people cope with the looming terror of death. Contemplative practices allow me to center myself by sinking more deeply into my fears, but also help me to better feel connection to my physical self, which in turn quiets my mind. They entice me to focus on my present experience as a time of abundance and possibility, instead of eventual doom. And this shift in perspective has lessened my fears and, therefore, enhanced my ability to connect more meaningfully with the coursework. As Walt Whitman writes of perspective in “A Song of the Rolling Earth,”

“I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete! 

I swear the earth remains broken and jagged only to him or her who remains broken and 

Jagged!”

 

This is an image my friend took of me while caving in Washington recently. During the trip, we sat down, turned out the lights, and did a short contemplative practice together in the thick darkness just listening to our breathing and thinking about where we were within the earth. Afterward, we found that we had both calmed down significantly–contemplating in a focused way on the danger and the physical actualities of our experience helped us to cope with the fear we felt.

 

Immortality Projects in the Anthropocene

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How do we cope with the knowledge that we will all die some day? In his book “The Worm at the Core,” Sheldon Solomon argues that, due to the sophistication of our neo-cortex, humans are uniquely haunted by the prospect of our own death. Solomon discusses many theories of death “terror management,” or how people cope with the looming terror of our own death. 

Many people unconsciously practice terror management in the form of immortality projects, which are ways of extending one’s legacy after death and ensuring a personal sense of meaning in our lives. Many immortality projects, such as having children or producing art, are largely benign. However, many actually work against the longevity and well-being of our species, although they may work to preserve our own personal sense of immortality. Immortality projects are commonly based on wealth or the accumulation of material goods, which is environmentally destructive. Because many of our current environmental problems come from overconsumption, it is deeply ironic and sad that many choose to extend their legacy through material means.

This drive to create immortality projects can also be harnessed for good. Humans will always need a way to cope with the idea of our own deaths. And, as the effects of climate change become more prominent for those in industrialized nations, the drive of the globally wealthy to create immortality projects will increase. 

Given this, a cultural shift away from consumerism as an immortality project in industrialized nations, and toward the enactment of positive environmental change as an immortality project may be one of humanity’s best tools in combating the climate crisis. Many in industrialized nations have extensive global influence in comparison to those in other parts of the world. If we choose to cope with our own deaths through environmental action, perhaps we can use immortality projects as a way to sustain the livelihood of our species and others, not just our own personal legacy.

Works Cited:

Solomon, Sheldon, et al. The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Penguin Books, 2016.

ANTHROPOCENE EPOCH. Vajiram and Ravi. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://vajiramias.com/current-affairs/anthropocene-epoch/5cee5ced1d5def75e6de0fce/.