Mortality - a return
Revisiting something I wrote earlier I’ve had some new thoughts. Thoughts on how we view death, and life. Whats our motivation for living and also reflecting on the passing of loved ones.
Now I’m a huge cynic and also tend towards the role of devils advocate just to stir up some discussion so on that basis here’s my opener for ten; can the act of mourning be selfish and can it have a positive outcome. Now I’m starting with the premise that when we experience the loss of a loved one (family member, partner, friend, pet, colleague) we grieve for the loss of that individual from the tapestry of our lives, and this is a natural reaction to the removal of something that makes us human (by the definition of contributing to the social make up of our existence). However in grief we experience a focussing of our emotion to a singular experience and that in itself can aid us in understanding our own role/part in our society (being the interactions we have in our day to day lives).
Now here’s the selfish bit (please feel free to argue the point), the loss we experience may be an internal emotion but it has external indicators in the way we conduct ourselves, whether it be restrained interactions with people around you or full blown expressions of grief. These external indicators result in expressions and actions of consolation and it is this consolation that helps us process the feelings of grief. However (just a fancy way to say but) its possible that the consolation has the beneficial effect of boosting ego and its this bit that’s selfish.
At what point does it go from “help me I’m grieving and I’m not coping” to “help me I’m grieving and your attention feels good”.
Now here’s my stance. Grief and consolation are natural parts of our humanity, without them we wouldn’t have society. Additionally ego is part of our personality - we all need to feel wanted (maslows hierarchy of needs - belonging). By experiencing grief, receiving consolation, dealing with grief and our egos benefitting from consolation we grow as humans.
Although the idea of benefitting from the consoling attention of others may sound mercenary it is essential to enable us to grow our self awareness and fine tune our personalities.
A selfless benefit of grief - it brings together disparate groups that may not perceive that they have anything in common however if developed can build and strengthen social groups.
It may not be relevant, in fact I don’t think it is however the below article got me thinking and resulted in the above. Have a read.
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