Death's Allure

Managed to attend my weekly therapy group session, chiefly by pretending I wasn't me. As usual, I was the only man there (men, as a general rule, are inherently self-sufficient, and so do not need therapy).

We discussed the things we fear most, and all but one of the women came up with death. When I told them death was one of the few things I didn’t fear I don’t think they believed me. I tried to explain. “Death is the absence of everything, including fear,” I said. “Everything I fear is bound up with living, because living generates desire, and desire is never satisfied.” Aware that I was sounding a little fatuous, like some crackpot, coffee-table, Californian quasi-Buddhist, I added. “I don’t mean that in any pseudo-spiritual or esoteric way. I mean it in hard, practical terms. Whatever you want, the opposite happens – in raw, experiential terms, that’s as close to an observable physical law, such as the law of gravity, that I’ve come across.”

At that point, X accused me – quite gently, it must be said – of showing off, of wanting to come across as macho and tough, which caused me quite a bit of amusement. “If I really was macho and tough,” I countered, “I wouldn’t be so terrified of life.”

For once, even she had to admit I had a point.