"Memento Mori" for the World?

In this year’s first blog post, I wrote some about the ancient idea of memento mori. (If you didn’t see or don’t remember that, click here.) Now, referring to some of my most important posts from 2022, I am wondering whether memento mori can apply to the world, not just individual people. 

Once again, I am linking to significant ideas of Michael Dowd, by whom I have been significantly influenced.* In December of last year, he posted a new YouTube video titled “Sanity 101.” The full version (here) is over 90 minutes long; the “Cliff Notes” version (here) is 30 minutes.

At some point, I encourage you to listen to one or both of those videos, which have the subtitle, “Living Fully in an Age of Decline: Essential Wisdom for Hard Times.”

While still fully affirming the reality of overshoot and the collapse of what he calls TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it), his emphasis in this new video is “post doom, no gloom.”

Dowd’s main point is that we humans today should not deny what we find disturbing or frightening but fully accept reality. In his opinion, formed by extensive reading of scientists and informed thinkers, the predicament of overshoot and collapse of the world’s civilization is certainly real.

So, acceptance of reality means making the most of the present rather than holding on to hope of change for the better in the future. Accordingly, he speaks pointedly about hopium, that is, holding on to false hopes that prevents us from accepting reality.

Memento mori for us individuals means that we live as meaningfully and as purposefully as possible now, fully realizing that we will die at some point in the future.

Rightly understood, memento mori is not a morbid dwelling on our approaching death, whenever that may be, but a healthy emphasis on living life to the fullest today, and every day.

Perhaps this significant idea needs to be applied more broadly: since the collapse of the world as we know it is inevitable, we need to make our existence in this world now as meaningful as possible, living in this post-doom time with no gloom.

This is a fruitful way for us older people to think. But what about our grandchildren (a disturbing matter I plan to write about next month)?

In spite of all I have learned from Michael Dowd, I have a couple of lingering questions/criticisms of his central emphases.

1) He repeatedly talks about the collapse of more than 100 civilizations in the past, emphasizing that the current industrial civilization’s collapse will be similar to those. But it seems to me that his point would be made more strongly if he talked more clearly about the uniqueness of TEOTWAWKI.

None of the collapsed civilizations of the past were as global in scope as the impending collapse, which could—and likely will!—mean a “mass extinction.” According to National Geographic, there have been five mass extinctions in the history of the earth; the sixth has already started.**

The Nat Geo article says the sixth mass extinction may occur as soon as 2260; Dowd says it is most likely to occur in this century. so why, I wonder, does he repeatedly emphasize the collapse of human civilizations in the past 4,000 years, none of which, obviously, led to mass human extinction.

2) Dowd repetitively emphasizes the futile nature of all human efforts to prevent collapse. All current attempts to stem global warming are based on the belief—or at least the hope—that that activity can and will result in reversal of collapse. Dowd refers to all such efforts as hopium.

But even if all human actions are insufficient to deter mass extinction, which they probably are, surely that doesn’t mean that concerted efforts would not postpone that fate to some extent, and maybe even significantly.

Concern for my grandchildren and now for my two great-grandchildren, makes me want to do more to help push as far into the future as possible what might well be sure mass extinction.

If we take seriously memento mori as individuals, we still do what we can to postpone our death, which is sure to occur at some point.

Similarly, if we apply the concept of memento mori to the present world civilization, shouldn’t we wholeheartedly do all we can to delay the coming collapse/extinction for as long as possible?

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* Last year I mentioned Dowd in four blog posts; the first times are here and here.

**The last mass extinction occurred about 66 million years ago, long before the first civilization of homo sapiens, which began less than 4,500 years ago. 

The Beginning of the End

This blog post is being made not long after the beginning of the year 2023—and today is the beginning of the end. In just 360 days, this year will end—and the earthly life of some of you Thinking Friends, or my own life, may come to an end before then. That’s worth thinking about, isn’t it?  

This is my 999^th blog post, so as announced previously, after my next post (planned for Jan. 10), I will no longer be posting blog articles every five days as I have done since early in 2010. I do hope to continue writing—but no longer on a schedule with deadlines.

I’ll be writing more about this next time, but since I will turn 85 this year, I have decided to reduce things that make for stress, even though writing these blog articles has mostly been eustress (= “moderate or normal psychological stress interpreted as being beneficial for the experiencer”).

It remains to be seen how often I will make blog posts in the months ahead, but they will, no doubt, be far fewer than now—and probably more personal and reflective as I likely won’t do nearly as much reading/research in writing new articles. So, this is the beginning of the end to my planned blogging.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. These words, which have almost become a cliché, are attributed to Charles Dederich (1913~97) by The Washington Post (in their 12/10/78 issue). So today, and every day, is the beginning of the end, and we should make the most of it. 

Recently, I’ve been reminded again of the old Stoic emphasis on memento mori, the Latin words often translated as “remember you must die.” As explained on Stoic.com’s website, “The point of this reminder isn’t to be morbid or promote fear, but to inspire, motivate and clarify.”

The same website has these significant words: “The Stoics used Memento Mori to invigorate life, and to create priority and meaning. They treated each day as a gift, and reminded themselves constantly to not waste any time in the day on the trivial and vain.”

From far back in history, some people have carried coin-like medallions with an image of a skull and the words memento mori as a regular reminder to make the present as meaningful as possible because of the inevitability of death. Such “coins” are readily available for purchase even now.* 

There are more modern ways to be regularly reminded of death, always with the purpose of making life now more meaningful. For some time now, my son Keith has subscribed to the daily reminders sent by WeCroak.com, which has this invitation: “Find happiness by contemplating your mortality.”

Earlier this week I signed up to get their short daily quotes, and all of them have certainly been worth thinking about.

When the Grim Reaper comes, I’ll just say, Reap away. That is what I said to June, somewhat light-heartedly, the other day. I certainly am in no hurry for the end to come, but I can honestly say that I have no fear of death—and that I want to make the most of every day until the end.

I am currently reading a book theologian Larry L. Rasmussen wrote for his grandchildren.** The final letter, written in April 2021, ends with the words of a Mexican folk hymn that I don’t remember ever hearing.

That hymn is included, in Spanish and in English, in The New Century Hymnal (#499). Here’s verse one, which expresses well my foundation for living meaningfully now and for thinking about the end with no fear:

In all our living, we belong to God; 
and in our dying, we are still with God;
So, whether living, or whether dying, 
we belong to God; we belong to God.

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* I don’t have and don’t intend to buy such a coin, but they are available for purchase here for $26.

** Rasmussen’s book is The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren When Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing (2022). At the end of next week, I will be submitting a review of it to The Englewood Review of Books.

Note: Arthur C. Brooks’s new book is From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life (2022). While it is written for people his age (he was born in 1964) rather than for people my age, his fifth chapter is “Ponder Your Death.” He doesn’t write specifically about memento mori, but he emphasizes that important idea: “Remembering that life won’t last forever makes us enjoy it all the more today” (p. 105).

Also, yesterday a Facebook friend sent me a link to this article posted on Christmas Day: “Want To Be Happy in 2023? Repeat This Four-Word Phrase.” Those four words are “remember you must die” (memento mori).