A sense of wonder

Posted by Michael Tymn
a resident of another community
on Apr 14, 2011 at 12:13 am

I share in Mr. Redon's concern about the lack of curiosity about life after death, but I think Ernest Becker addressed the question in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Denial of Death." We bury the idea of death deep in the subconscious and then busy ourselves with our jobs, partake of certain pleasures, strut in our new clothes, show off our polished cars, hit little white balls into round holes, escape into fictitious stories in books, at the movies, and on television, experience vicarious thrills at sporting events, pursue material wealth, and seek a mundane security that we expect to continue indefinitely, all the while oblivious to the fact that in the great scheme of things such activities are exceedingly short-term and for the most part meaningless. Becker refers to this “secure” person as the “automatic cultural man.” He is “man confined by culture, a slave to it, who imagines that he has an identity if he pays his insurance premiums, that he has control of his life if he guns his sports car or works his electric toothbrush.”