Just after reading the title I’m sure you’ve already judged me and are gearing up to attack me as soon as I start to explain myself. I do not care if you agree with me, my greatest fear is only that you’ll read the rest of this essay with a bias against me. I ask that you please let that go and just listen. Your possible frustration will not affect the words that have already been written. It only affects the attitude you have as you continue to read. You’ll be clouding your own mind instead of the words on the page.
Let me just start by saying that I do not wish death on any one. I hope this is obvious. I also would love to see the day that nobody died and therefore no one would mourn. The loss of life is hard to deal with and I would prefer if no one ever had to deal with it.
Now the first place to start is to describe the emotions, feelings, and thoughts that happen to someone who has lost someone they care about. They probably go through the 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. The first 4 stages are what I will try to show as being self-centered. The last step is acceptance, which is more a state of mind and not a feeling or action. For the rest of this essay, to make it easier to understand, I will use the example that someone close to you has died. I will therefore be referring to you as the person I am trying to argue with and show that you are being selfish.
Stage 1: Denial
Here is where you refuse to believe that someone you care for has actually died. The most common phrase used at this point is “I don’t believe it.” Do you really not believe it? Or do you just not want to believe the truth? Regardless of the answer we need to ask a different question: “Why don’t you believe or want to believe?” Answer: Because of the significance of the event. A life has ended. But, why do you care that a life has ended? The unintelligent and superficial answer would be, “Because I care about the person.” But do you see what the problem with that answer is? Just because someone died, does that mean you no longer care about that person? No, of course not. You care for that person now just as much as you did when they were alive. So, back to the original question: “Why do you care that they died?” There are two answers you might give. Either “I’m sad because they don’t get to live out the rest of their life.” (This assumes that living out your life is a positive thing. I’m okay with that assumption). Or they say “I’ll never get to see them again.”
“I’m sad because they won’t be able to live out their life.”
You are probably going to think I’m a huge jerk for saying what I’m about to say, but please look deeper and test what I’m saying to see if it’s true. My question is: Why should someone be sad that another person cannot live out their life? Does the person who passed away care that they can no longer live out the rest of their life? No, they are dead. They do not have this facility. Does the person who passed away have any negative feelings/attitudes/thoughts about death? No. Again, they are dead and are not capable of that. If a person says the above quotation what they really mean is: “If that person was alive then they could experience the joy and happiness that comes with life.” You want the other person to experience happiness because if you saw the other person in a state of happiness that would make you happy. And that’s the key. The selfishness is right there at the end. If that person were alive right now, they would have the ability to experience happiness. And when they are happy you are happy. It’s all about your happiness. It’s an altruistic selfishness. At this point you might argue that you want the other person to be happy for their own sake. That their happiness is the final good/goal. I would respond to this in two ways. First, look at the two words that start the person doing the “wanting”. It’s “you”. YOU WANT ___________. It’s all about what you want. Secondly, the dead person does not want to be happy. They are incapable of wanting anything since they are brain dead. Plus, the dead person is not in a negative state. They are not sad nor depressed nor do they lack/want anything. They cannot have those feelings. Again, they do not want to be happy. Therefore, their happiness cannot be a final good. It can only be an instrumental good for you.
“I will never get to see them again.”
This is an easier response to explain. Just re-read it and you will see that it reeks of selfish attitude. The first word is “I”. Right there anyone can see that you are just talking about your own wishes. This sentence contains no happy thoughts for the dead person. Instead, its only focus is on what you want.
Stage 2: Anger
The next step in this process is anger. People become mad at the situation. But, we must find what you are really mad at. You are mad that the person is dead. But why? And what is your anger directed towards? We must first answer the questions of why you are mad your friend is dead. As you might say, it is either because your friend won’t get to finish out their life or because you cared for them and did not want to see them dead.
I already explained the actual, underlining, selfish feeling behind you wishing your friend could live out their life so I will move on to the next answer. You did not want to see your friend dead. This is because you see the state of death as a negative thing. So, you are mad that something negative happened to your friend. But again, that is not where it ends. When you care about someone, you also mimic their emotions. When someone you care about feels sad, you start to feel sad. When your friend laughs in happiness, you will smile back in happiness. One must admit that when you get a gift for someone, you enjoy giving it to them because seeing their happiness gives you happiness. It is partly a selfish act. Back to the death situation. When your friend dies, you see it as something negative happening and you see your friend in a constant negative state. In this way you also become sad and in a negative state. You become angry that whatever caused your friend’s death is also affecting you. You are in a negative state because your friend is in a negative state. This negative state partly manifests itself as anger.
This anger also comes from not being able to see your friend again. You are angry because you will not be able to experience friendship with them again. You are being totally selfish in your anger towards everything you will not have. You are angry because you want to have your friend, but the friend was taken away. You are angry because you want what you can no longer have.
Stage 3: Bargaining
This whole step clearly contains the flavor of selfishness. You ask to give up one of your items in order to reverse the death of a friend. Why? Because you would be happier not having that item and instead having your friend. At this point you might say that you would not be doing this only for yourself. You truly would give up anything for the other person to be alive. There are now two things to look at here. The selfish act of helping someone back to life AND the weighted bargain.
Starting with the selfish act of helping someone back to life: How would you feel if I told you that your bargain helped someone back to life? You would feel such gratification knowing that you had a hand in bringing someone back to life. And this is not a consequence, it is the cause. So, when making “the bargain” you are only thinking about how happy you would be if that person came back to life and how happy you would be knowing you had a hand in it.
Now onto the weighted bargain. This means that the bargain you make will provide a net positive outcome to yourself. If the net outcome was a negative you would not make the. Let me illustrate with examples. If you said, “I will give up my car and my house to have my friend come back to life,” you are only making this deal because the personal happiness you would receive from knowing your friend is alive outweighs the negative effects of giving up your car and house. Do you agree? Nah, you probably still think you would make this bargain solely for the friend’s happiness. Well check this out. If your friend was alive would you give up your car and house if it meant your friend would get a $100 gift card to Best Buy? Huh, would you? But the gift card would make your friend happy! And you said earlier that you would give up your car and house simply for their happiness. So why not this time? I’ll tell you why! Because the negative effects outweigh the positive effects. You are being selfish, but there is nothing wrong with that J Everyone is selfish. Sure, a lot of people would trade some material property in order to bring someone back to life, because the overall personal outcome is your own happiness. But no one would trade two expensive material items for a small monetary card because the overall personal outcome would be negative. Therefore, you would only make “the bargain” because of the happiness you attain from the result.
Step 4: Depression
This is the final stage of grief that I will be talking about and could possibly be the most controversial. If I were to summarize it now I would say depression is a totally self-centered attitude and anyone could get out of their depression if they stopped feeling sorry for themselves, accepted what happened, and just tried to make their future better. It’s that easy! Depressed is defined as “sad and gloomy; dejected.” I will therefore characterize a depressed person as sad or gloomy.
When a person is depressed or sad or gloomy we have to ask what caused it and why does that event make them sad? As is the case with the rest of this essay we will cover the event of death. It’s no surprise that if you ask someone what emotion they would feel if someone they cared about died the number one response would be sadness or depression. So let’s see why that is. If someone you cared about died and you became sad I would ask, “What’s wrong?” you would reply, “My (spouse, significant other, best friend, etc.) passed away.” To which I would respond, “Why does that make you sad?” You would then probably give me a funny look and counter with something like, “Because I loved them.” Do you see where I’m going with this? Does your friend’s death now prevent you from loving them? No. So what are you implying when you say the reason you are gloomy is because someone you loved is dead? We have already been over the answers: “Because they won’t be able to live out their life.” And “I won’t be able to see them again.” So what else is there? Possibly: “I won’t be able to share my love with them,” “I will always miss them,” “There will now be an empty hole in my heart,” “They made me happy.”
All those excuses are egotistical and full of self-pity. You won’t be able to share your love with them? Ok, I don’t deny that, but it’s just one more problem that affects no one but you. So accept it and move on. You will always miss them? See that first pronoun? It’s “you” which, like all the other excuses tells us that the only person this problem affects is you. Missing someone is natural. So accept it, move on, and stop feeling sorry for yourself. We all miss something; this is life. There will be an empty hole in your heart? That is so self-centered. You think the rest of us haven’t felt heart-brake before? It happens to everyone. The fact that this has also happened to you makes you human. So stop feeling sorry for yourself and move on. They made you happy? Everyone loses something that makes them happy, you are not the exception. Find something else that makes you happy. There are multiple people or things that can provide happiness, so stop letting yourself be sad over what you don’t have and go search for another person/item that will make you happy. All of those excuses were centered on things you no longer have. It’s all about what happened to you. Self-pity at its finest. Now get up, accept it, and move on. You can be happy again if you stop crying over what you had and start to focus on what you currently still have or can have.
I hope you stuck with this essay and continued until the end. And I know on the surface this looks awful and unsympathetic, but I hope you take a closer look at what I said and actually think about it. Not only will seriously considering what I said be tricky but knowing how to apply this will be tricky as well. I highly recommend not showing this essay nor using its logic to someone who is grieving. This should only be used as a teaching tool before a person grieves or a long time after a person has finished mourning their dead. Only with a clear mind should one read or be given this reasoning.
As a tangent I will explain how I want this logic to be applied to my loved ones should I die. If I die, please do not mourn for me. No amount of sadness or depression can change the outcome. Also, I will be dead and will not have the ability to see who is crying over my death. So, if you believe that you will be “paying your respects” or something like that, don’t worry about it. I don’t see how you can respect a dead person. In order to show respect, I must be able to observe it, which would be impossible if I’m dead. Also, how do you think I would feel if I knew that I had a part in your sadness? I would feel awful. No matter what happens, I never want to be the cause of your depression or tears. Even if it is because I died, I still would not want to know that you were in a state of mourning because of me. So, do me a favor please, and do not mourn my death. I do not want to be the cause, either directly or indirectly, of any form of sadness.
Thanks for reading!
*Note: I make no claim as to whether acting in selfishness or selfishness, in and of itself, is right or wrong. I do not wish to answer that question. All I wish to show is that mourning is a selfish act. I do not assert whether it is morally right or wrong. That is for someone else to decide.
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