The perils of distraction

One of us, K, thinks that a lot of what we do is done to distract us from the fundamental tragic aspects of life. The other, R, is not sure about this.
R. What do you mean by distraction?


K. I think we have a need to distract ourselves from the lonely waiting for death, which can begin early in life, and which depresses some young people so much that they elect to suicide. We have a need to pretend that we are not just helplessly subject to the life cycle. Distraction starts early with fairy stories and adventure stories and cartoons, which are all about super human powers.


R. Hmm. Distraction sounds very judgemental to me. What would it mean to not pretend that we are helpless? What would it be like to bear death in mind all of the time?


K. I think of Buddhism, and being in the present without the grandiose intrusions of fame and fortune. Being less distracted would mean being less grandiose and wanting to be special in the eyes of other people – parents, peers, social media.


R. I think you might be confusing distraction with denial in your position.


K. To me denial is the precursor of distraction – one follows the other.


R. I think they are quite different and distinct. Denial is just that, a refusal to acknowledge the truth. Distraction for you seems to be the impetus for culture, so it is all pervasive. But as such there is no outside. To me there is no necessary connection between the imagination and the denial of death – for example.


K. I think we use imagination in the service of denial of the inevitable, by finding or creating things to distract us.


“But the fear of death grew ever darker upon them, and they delayed it by all means that they could; and they began to build great houses for their dead, while their wise men laboured unceasingly to discover if they might the secret of recalling life, or at the least of the prolonging of Men’s days. Yet they achieved only the art of preserving incorrupt the dead flesh of Men, and they filled all the land with silent tombs in which the thought of death was enshrined in the darkness. But those that lived turned the more eagerly to pleasure and revelry, desiring ever more goods and more riches;….” (The Silmarillion-J.R.R.Tolkien)


To be continued