Episode #162 - The Creation of Meaning - The Denial of Death
The Creation of Meaning - The Denial of Death
This episode, part of the Creation of Meaning series, explores Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death as a scientific lens through which to understand the human struggle for significance. At the center is the recurring protagonist—someone navigating the abundance of Western modernity while starving for purpose and permanence. Becker frames this existential tension as a duality between our symbolic capacity for meaning-making and our biological vulnerability to death. Unable to live in constant awareness of mortality, humans engage in “immortality projects”—cultural roles and value systems that offer symbolic endurance. Through these roles, we deny death by constructing identities that feel significant and lasting. But Becker suggests that even these identities are illusions—necessary ones, crafted not to deceive but to help us function. Culture, like religion, offers structure, comfort, and purpose, blurring the line between secular and sacred. Rather than condemning this process, Becker invites us to understand it—to see through the illusions without discarding them, and to live meaningfully alongside the fear they help manage.
Further Reading:
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker (1973)
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalom (2008)
Free Yourself from Death Anxiety: A CBT Self-Help Guide for a Fear of Mortality by Rachel Menzies and David Veale (2022)
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