Tag: william blake

The Afterlife and Psychic Hygiene

Old folks have a reputation for worrying, for longing for the good old days, for catastrophic thinking.  I don’t think I am an overly negative person (my kids might disagree), but these are surely times to try an old lady’s optimism.  I know the stereotype is that elders are backward-looking, but I don’t want to return to the days before vaccines and the Civil Rights Act.  I am, however, searching for something positive to look forward to.

For years, parents could look forward to a better life for our children; upward mobility is not so easy anymore, for economic, environment, and political reasons.  At the founding of the UN, there were hopes for world peace.  We could find comfort that we would leave the world and our loved ones in better shape than we found them.  But no more.   So how can we alleviate our worries, calm our psyches, have the courage to soon leave life behind?

In “The Stages of Life” (recommended), Carl Jung acknowledged that old people needed something good to anticipate, and he suggested that the notion of the “afterlife” could have therapeutic value for us elders, particularly as it could take away some of the fear we face as we begin “transitioning” to death:

I therefore consider that all religions with a supramundane goal are eminently reasonable from the point of view of psychic hygiene.  When I live in a house which I know will fall about my head within the next two weeks, all my vital functions will be impaired by this thought; but if on the contrary I feel myself to be safe, I can dwell there in a normal and comfortable way.  From the standpoint of psychotherapy, it would therefore be desirable to think of death as only a transition, as part of a life process whose extent and duration are beyond our knowledge.

Death as placebo, you say.  Maybe.

It is interesting to note that in the medieval period in Europe there was a general belief that life was getting worse, that mankind was declining from a golden age (Eden?) through silver and brass to iron.   Even earlier, Ovid gave a clear delineation of the ages in the Metamorphoses, from the Golden Age, which “still retained some seed of the celestial force,” through the Age of Silver, when constant springtime was compromised with the addition of the other seasons, to the Age of Bronze, and finally the corrupt Iron Age, when humanity let loose to “Violence and the damned desire of having.”  After this cycle of decline, the population is destroyed in a flood and new men are created out of the earth, and presumably the cycle starts again.  I don’t really know where we are in the current cycle, but “violence and the damned desire of having” sound familiar.  Any rewards or punishments were to be found in another life, in a very real heaven or a very scary hell.  The assumption of “progress” only became common after the Enlightenment.

Americans tend to believe (or say they believe) in an afterlife of some sort (reincarnation counts).  According to a Pew study in 2021, about 73% of Americans believe in heaven but only 62% believe in hell.  There’s optimism for you. More people over 50 believe in heaven and hell than younger people (no surprise there) and more Republicans believe than Democrats.  Maybe that’s why they are not so afraid of an earthly future of global warming and increasing warfare – as they say, “there will be pie in the sky when you die.”

But back to Jung and the idea that believing in an afterlife is an act of psychic hygiene.  Can we make ourselves do it?  As John Lennon inferred, we are past that.   “Imagine there’s no heaven/It’s easy if you try/No hell below us/Above us, only sky.”  Not believing in heaven is “easy;” believing has become very difficult – a little like trying to believe in Santa Claus again.  And yet I understand where Jung is coming from.  In his memoir (recommended) Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung has a chapter entitled “Life After Death,” in which he recalls glimpses of eternity that he got as a child and again cautions against ridiculing the therapeutic comfort that believers receive:

Leaving aside the rational arguments against any certainty in these matters, we must not forget that for most people it means a great deal to assume that their lives will have an indefinite continuity beyond their present existence.  They live more sensibly, feel better, and are more at peace. One has centuries. One has an inconceivable period of time at one’s disposal.  What then is the point of this senseless mad rush?

This led me to think about Herman Melville.  In a little-read book Melville titled The Confidence Man (written by the master just after Moby-Dick), one of the characters cautions against forcing old people up against the truth:

“Yes, poor soul,” said the Missourian, gravely eyeing the old man – “yes, it is pitiless in one like me to speak too honestly to one like you.  You are a later sitter-up in this life; past man’s usual bed-time; and truth, though with some it makes a wholesome breakfast, proves to all a supper too hearty.  Hearty food, taken late, gives bad dreams.”

And that is what facing the truths of our world reminds me of – “a supper too hearty.”  Is a belief in an afterlife an answer?  Simone de Beauvoir suggested in The Coming of Age that we all needed a project in old age, we must continue the good fight. Beauvoir says that “there is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning – devotion to individuals, to groups or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work.  In spite of the moralists’ opinion to the contrary, in old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in upon ourselves.”  Yes.  But.  She also says (and all of this is in her conclusion to the book) that it is fairly inevitable that “illusions” will vanish and “one’s zeal for life pass away.”  And where does that leave us?

In this, as in most things, I land in Spinoza’s camp. Spinoza said that we were thinking about eternity in the wrong way; he says that we think of eternity as a matter of time rather than a matter of the moment, of awareness:

If we attend to the common opinion of men, we shall see that they are indeed conscious of the eternity of their mind, but that they confuse it with duration, and attribute it to the imagination, or memory, which they believe remains after death. (Ethics V)

Reminding myself of my own mortality (try the Buddhist Five Recollections daily), helps me do this.  William Blake puts it more poetically:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

For an example of a very old lady’s momentary heaven, you might try my short story, “Like Heaven.”  For a blog on another aspect of this subject, try, “Retirement, Death, and the Land of Cockaigne.”  And try to put into words what it is you do believe.

Whispered Words of Wisdom – Let It Be

I like autumn as a metaphor for old age. I know it is not a perfect metaphor; golden leaves on the trees renew themselves in the spring, but we cannot renew ourselves in the same way. Hopkins points out that the “Goldengrove unleaving” is a reminder of the “blight  man was born for.” And it is. And yet. I recent read a memoir by Pico Iyer entitled Autumn Light and would highly recommend it – or any of his books. There was this about fall in Japan:

And every year the autumn poses the same question, which I, every year, am barely able to answer. There’s no time to waste, the yuzu-colored light reminds me; and yet it would be a crime – a sin – to turn away from the beauty of the season. The bright days make me unable to resist the impulse to go outside; the days of sudden, unrelenting rain commit me to solitary confinement. I am not always ready to accept that it’s in surrendering my hopes and careful designs that real freedom comes. (my emphasis)

And it is really surrendering that I want to talk about – letting go. It should be so easy, and it is nevertheless the hardest thing. And not just for me. Every meditation or contemplative group that I have participated in comes back to this again and again. We know it will make our life easier; we know it is inevitable in the long run. But we cannot do it. And I would note here that letting go is not the same as disregarding; detachment is not apathy.

I have always known intellectually that letting go would help. When my son complained of stress at work, the only advice I would give him that I knew was right, was to not take it seriously, to let it go. To do the job well, but with detachment as to results and the regard of other people. This was advice I was never able to follow myself, but I knew it would have allowed me to work longer and healthier. And better. It’s even true of relationships – we all know of relationships that fell apart because one of the partners tried too hard, held on too tight, as William Blake knew:

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

Maybe it’s a little like dieting. It should be the easiest thing in the world not to eat. So it is with worrying, fretting, blaming, catastrophizing. Who wants to frighten ourselves to death? Apparently, most of us.

In old age many of the worries of our youth should have dissipated. Our children are grown, ambition has run its course, (most) passions are dulled. But that seems to make little difference. We worry about our grandchildren, our aches and pains, our declining loved ones. There is always something. But we also have our own very real experience proving that 99% of the things we worried about never came to pass – and even when catastrophe materialized, it was seldom as bad as we expected. Shouldn’t we have learned? The truth, I think, is that we have learned, but old habits die hard.

One thing we know will happen. We will die. Worrying about that not only won’t help, but it will diminish the days we have left. I started with the metaphor of autumn for old age. Autumn is a wonderful season, my favorite. But it would be spoiled if we just saw it as a harbinger of winter. Let it be say Lennon and McCartney. Fear no evil says the 23rd Psalm. You can only lose what you cling to says the Buddha. Consider the lilies says Jesus.

If you have figured out the trick to this – to letting go and letting be – let me know. Let all of us know.  Please.

My story, “Every Winged Bird,” does not give us an answer, but it does give a picture of someone who has given up everything which does not give her joy. It was part of a series I wrote inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Ovid knows about change, and in another poem he said “happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.” He doesn’t tell us how, though.