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Flight From Death: The Quest For Immortality

I know. Death. Probably not your favorite subject to think about right? Flight from Death, a documentary that explores the seminal work of Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, makes the case that all humans actually think about the subject a lot more than they might be aware.  Consciously and subconsciously.   But it makes us anxious, which then affects us psychologically, spiritually, and culturally.

Maybe if you’ve read this far, you see the value in fighting past the discomfort created when one has to fully acknowledge the finite nature of life.

And more to the films point, you may also recognize this discomfort when people meet others, who by holding different death denying beliefs, are perceived as a threat to our way of understanding our immortality narratives.  

“Man cannot live without a continuous confidence in something indestructible within himself.” ~ Kafka

The film goes on to say that this anxiety plays itself out in many ways.  The easiest seen when humans live out ways of conquering someone else.  This can be demonstrated in various ways, some more destructive than others.

“Tolerance is an ambitious goal given the differences we encounter everyday.  If ultimately there can only be one truth, then the other supposed truths must be wrong.  The existence of other conceptions of reality, forces us to question our own belief system, and therefore our claims to immortality.”

And people can sometimes respond in 4 ways:

• Dismiss.
• Try to convert.
• Incorporate some aspects of the other and then diffuse the rest.
• Seek to annihilate those who belief differently.

Check out the trailer to this film. Also…I highly recommend the movie itself.  (Thanks to Filip Matous for suggesting this film, and book The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker.)

 

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