Mortality and living, the two steadfast pillars of life.
We live, and yet, one day we die. We are part of a play, but someone behind the scene is waiting to draw the curtains following an unknown cue. It is just that recognition of the fact that life ends is often not there until one day it’s starkness becomes quite clear. From then on, the recognition of mortality, and the need to live could lead to many dilemmas.
For most of us until a certain point of time in life, the psychological receptors of mortality (PROM) are not expressed. It could happen that they may never get expressed.
For some others, the PROMs do get expressed but we find ways to dull their functions and their fallout.
Then there are those who get to live with their PROMs that are active. For them, to have a productive and functional life, they have to resolve the contradiction that living is also the process of dying.
The notion of PROM is like the sudden expression of genes that until a point in time were dormant, were merely a potential and then get triggered by some stressor. A potential becomes a reality, oftentimes, with devastating consequences.
When PROMs get expressed, the fundamental task in our hands is to resolve the tension between the need to live and our continuing awareness of mortality. The basic requirement is to keep the sense of purpose and meaning in our life, without which, getting out of the bed becomes a chore, and passage of the day, an uninviting prospect to face.
Resolving any tension between any two entities requires change. Changes allow us to handle PROMs and regulate their consequences.
The two entities that are in tension are living and mortality. For now, we cannot change mortality but not that it is for the lack of trying. Perhaps one day we would.
The thing we can change is how we live. It is in our hands to change the way we live and help live side by side with our PROMs. To be able to do that, we need an appropriate framework for living as our guide. For finding the suitable framework, it would be good if one can have a few basic axioms (or principles) as our guide, and following which, we can build up the required framework for living we need.
There are plenty of frameworks of living and constructs out there (religion, notion of reincarnation and heaven, fortune telling, innumerable philosophical structures) to come to grips with our awareness of mortality and and to handle consequence of that awareness. Any of these might work for us, or none may. We could try them all but given limited resources and time we have at our disposal, we do not have the luxury for that.
The bottom line is that among the frameworks for living that are out there, we need to find, and if we do not come across one, create one that fits with who we are. Each one of us, after all, has a unique self, and may require a unique solution.
When we think we have something in hand that fits well with our uniqueness, it also needs a test drive to see if it actually works. And as time goes along, and as different psychological receptors get expressed, the chosen framework for living may need continued tweaks.
To move forward, the proposed axioms for resolving the tension between the psychological receptors of mortality and the need to live, are:
- find or build a framework for living that fits our uniqueness, and
- when followed, brings us the satisfaction that in the end, although the universe will go on, we had a life that was well lived.
The second axiom is the ultimate test whether we found the right framework of living for ourselves. As we will discuss later, one need not wait until the end of life to figure that out. There are faster ways to judge the appropriateness of the framework for living we chose.
With the right framework for living, we would have lived a fulfilling and a wonderful life, and would not have been bullied by active PROMs.
Ciao.
Summary:
1. Mortality and living, the two steadfast pillars of life.
2. When the psychological receptors of mortality get expressed and become active, we have to resolve the tension between mortality and need to live. Between the two, the one we can change is how we live.
3. Having starting points would help to either find or construct a framework for living that works for who we are.
4. There are two principles to explore the right framework for living: (i) the appropriate framework for living should blend with our innate nature, and (ii) following which brings a sense that life has a meaning and a purpose, and is well lived.
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