Don't Do This to Yourself, Simple Joys and Death

A friend spoke these words to a woman who was about to carry out a criminal act that would hurt people: “Don't do this to yourself.”

But she carried on just as if he had said nothing at all, and it did destroy her.

That was probably the purpose of the criminal act in the first place – to destroy herself.

These things sometime seem incredibly subtle and convoluted. I read in a new book that Freud was getting over $4,000 per hour while living in England, for helping people to sort out their subtleties.

The subtleties are there, real, and fascinating for those of us who find ourselves engaged in studying them. They are as fascinating to me to study as the birds are to an ornithologist or the layers of earth are to a geologist.

But it is within reach of all of us to understand and live by the idea that we have 'to do to others as we would have them do to us.' That's not obscure rocket science. It's the central ethical idea of all the major religions.

It is subtle, but not impossible, further to understand that we are social in our uniquely human nature, and thus consequently to realize that what we do to others, we do do to ourselves! I take this to be an essential point of social psychology and it's also the idea of “send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

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Here's another simple joy.

I was thinking of death this morning, as I often do, and of how much clarity and peace it gives me to think about it, as well as the simple joys it makes possible when seeing the grass outside my window or hearing the voices of those children next door.

I speak of death to certain friends from time to time but quickly sense the push-back and distaste. That's a little sad because I feel that they are missing out on something excruciatingly important and good, and I also feel the distance between us, which is a sorrow.

So it was with great appreciation and delight that I recently came across this quote from Jung in his Red Book, p.275:

Joy at the smallest things comes to you only when you have accepted death. But if you look out greedily for all that you could still live, then nothing is great enough for your pleasure, and the smallest things that continue to surround you are no longer a joy. Therefore I behold death, since it teaches me how to live.

I think that may be the simplest yet profoundest statement of what I feel about our approaching deaths.

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