第1章: 死すべき傷
悲しみが私の心に入り込む。私は死を恐れている。
— ギルガメシュ
自己認識は最高の贈り物であり、貴重な宝物ですが、その代償として死すべき傷を伴います。私たちの存在は、成長し、花開き、そして避けられずに衰退して死に至るという知識によって永遠に影を落とされます。死すべき運命は歴史の始まりから私たちを悩ませてきました。四千年前、バビロンの英雄ギルガメシュは友人エンキドゥの死を反映し、上記の言葉を述べました。「お前は暗くなり、私の声を聞くことができない。私が死んだとき、私はエンキドゥのようにならないだろうか？悲しみが私の心に入り込む。私は死を恐れている。」
ギルガメシュは私たち全てを代表しています。彼が死を恐れたように、私たち全員—すべての男、女、子供—が死を恐れています。私たちの中には、死の恐怖が間接的に、一般的な不安や他の心理的な症状として現れるだけの人もいれば、死について明確かつ意識的な不安の流れを感じる人もいます。そして、死の恐怖がすべての幸せや充実感を否定するほどの恐怖に爆発する人もいます。
何千年もの間、思索的な哲学者たちは死すべき傷を癒す方法を模索し、私たちが調和と平和に満ちた人生を築けるよう手助けしようとしてきました。死の不安に苦しむ多くの人々を治療する心理療法士として、私は古代の知恵、特に古代ギリシャの哲学者たちの知恵が今日においても非常に relevant であることを発見しました。実際、私の療法家としての仕事において、私が知的な先祖として位置づけるのは、19世紀末から20世紀初頭の偉大な精神科医や心理学者たち—ピネル、フロイト、ユング、パブロフ、ロールシャッハ、スキナーではなく、古典的なギリシャの哲学者たち、特にエピクロスです。私はこの素晴らしいアテネの思想家について学べば学ぶほど、エピクロスを存在主義的心理療法の先駆者として強く認識するようになり、この作品を通じて彼の考えを使っていくつもりです。
彼は紀元前341年に生まれ、プラトンの死後間もなく、紀元前270年に亡くなりました。今日、多くの人々が彼の名前を「エピキュリアン」または「エピキュア」から知っており、それは洗練された感覚的享楽（特に良い食事や飲み物）に没頭する人物を意味します。しかし、歴史的に見て、エピクロスは感覚的な快楽を推奨していたわけではありません。彼はむしろ、平静（アタラクシア）の達成に強い関心を持っていました。
Chapter 1: The Mortal Wound
Sorrow enters my heart. I am afraid of death.
—Gilgamesh
Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure that comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die. Mortality has haunted us since the beginning of history. Four thousand years ago, the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh reflected on the death of his friend Enkidu with the words from the epigraph above: “Thou hast become dark and cannot hear me. When I die, shall I not be like Enkidu? Sorrow enters my heart. I am afraid of death.”
Gilgamesh speaks for all of us. As he feared death, so do we all—each and every man, woman, and child. For some of us, the fear of death manifests only indirectly, either as generalized unrest or masqueraded as another psychological symptom. Other individuals experience an explicit and conscious stream of anxiety about death, and for some, the fear of death erupts into terror that negates all happiness and fulfillment.
For eons, thoughtful philosophers have attempted to dress the wound of mortality and to help us fashion lives of harmony and peace. As a psychotherapist treating many individuals struggling with death anxiety, I have found that ancient wisdom, particularly that of the ancient Greek philosophers, is thoroughly relevant today. Indeed, in my work as a therapist, I take as my intellectual ancestors not so much the great psychiatrists and psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—Pinel, Freud, Jung, Pavlov, Rorschach, and Skinner—but classical Greek philosophers, particularly Epicurus. The more I learn about this extraordinary Athenian thinker, the more strongly I recognize Epicurus as the proto-existential psychotherapist, and I will make use of his ideas throughout this work.
He was born in the year 341 B.C.E., shortly after the death of Plato, and died in 270 B.C.E. Most people today are familiar with his name through the word epicure or epicurean, signifying a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink). But in historical reality, Epicurus did not advocate sensuous pleasure; he was far more concerned with the attainment of tranquility (ataraxia).
Epicurus practiced “medical philosophy” and insisted that just as a doctor treats the body, a philosopher must treat the soul. In his view, there was only one proper goal of philosophy: to alleviate human misery. And the root cause of misery? Epicurus believed it to be our omnipresent fear of death. The frightening vision of inevitable death, he said, interferes with one’s enjoyment of life and leaves no pleasure undisturbed. To alleviate the fear of death, he developed several powerful thought experiments that have helped me personally face death anxiety and offer the tools I use to help my patients. In the discussion that follows, I often refer to these valuable ideas.
My personal experience and clinical work have taught me that anxiety about dying waxes and wanes throughout the life cycle. Children at an early age cannot help but notice the glimmerings of mortality surrounding them—dead leaves, insects and pets, disappearing grandparents, grieving parents, endless acres of cemetery tombstones. Children may simply observe, wonder, and, following their parents’ example, remain silent. If they openly express their anxiety, their parents become noticeably uncomfortable and, of course, rush to offer comfort. Sometimes adults attempt to find soothing words, or transfer the whole matter into the distant future, or soothe children’s anxiety with death-denying tales of resurrection, eternal life, heaven, and reunion.
The fear of death ordinarily goes underground from about six to puberty, the same years Freud designated as the period of latent sexuality. Then, during adolescence, death anxiety erupts in force: teenagers often become preoccupied with death, and a few consider suicide. Many adolescents today may respond to death anxiety by becoming masters and dispensers of death in their second life in violent video games. Others defy death with gallows humor and death-taunting songs, or by watching horror films with friends. In my early adolescence, I went twice a week to a small cinema around the corner from my father’s store and, in concert with my friends, screamed during horror movies and gawked at the endless films depicting the barbarity of World War II. I remember shuddering silently at the sheer capriciousness of being born in 1931 rather than five years earlier, like my cousin Harry, who died in the slaughter of the Normandy invasion.
Some adolescents defy death by taking daredevil risks. One of my male patients—who had multiple phobias and a pervasive dread that something catastrophic could happen at any moment—told me how he began skydiving at the age of sixteen and took dozens of dives. Now, looking back, he believes this was a way of dealing with his persistent fear of his own mortality.
As the years go by, adolescent death concerns are pushed aside by the two major life tasks of young adulthood: pursuing a career and beginning a family. Then, three decades later, as children leave home and the end points of professional careers loom, the midlife crisis bursts upon us, and death anxiety once again erupts with great force. As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.
エピクロスは「医学的哲学」を実践し、医者が体を治療するように、哲学者も魂を治療しなければならないと主張しました。彼の見解では、哲学の唯一の適切な目的は人間の苦しみを和らげることでした。そして、その苦しみの根本的な原因は何か？エピクロスは、それが私たちの常に存在する死への恐怖だと信じていました。彼が言うには、避けられない死の恐ろしいビジョンは、人生の楽しみを妨げ、いかなる喜びも邪魔してしまうのです。死の恐怖を和らげるために、彼は幾つかの強力な思考実験を考案しました。これらは私自身が死への不安に直面し、私の患者を助けるために使う道具となっています。この後の議論で、私はしばしばこれらの貴重な考えに言及します。
私自身の経験と臨床の仕事を通じて、死に対する不安は人生のサイクルを通じて増減を繰り返すことを学びました。子どもたちは幼い頃、周囲に存在する死の兆し—枯れ葉、昆虫やペット、姿を消した祖父母、悲しむ親々、無限に広がる墓地の墓石—に気づかざるを得ません。子どもたちは単に観察し、驚き、親の例に従って沈黙を守ることが多いです。もし彼らがその不安を公に表現すれば、親は明らかに不快に感じ、もちろんすぐに慰めの言葉をかけます。時には、大人たちは慰めの言葉を見つけようとしたり、問題を遠い未来に持ち越そうとしたり、死を否定する復活、永遠の命、天国、再会の物語で子どもの不安を和らげようとします。
死の恐怖は通常、6歳から思春期にかけて地下に潜み、フロイトが「潜在的な性の時期」と呼んだ時期と重なります。その後、思春期になると、死への不安は強烈に噴出します。ティーンエイジャーたちはしばしば死に没頭し、一部は自殺を考えることもあります。今日の多くの若者は、暴力的なビデオゲームの中で死を使いこなし、配分することで死の不安に反応するかもしれません。その他の若者は、死を逆手に取ってガロウズ・ユーモアや死を挑発する歌、友達と一緒にホラー映画を見ることによって死に挑戦します。私の思春期初期、私は父の店のすぐ近くの小さな映画館に週二回通い、友達と共にホラー映画で叫び、第二次世界大戦の野蛮さを描いた映画をじっと見つめていました。私は1931年に生まれ、ノルマンディー上陸作戦で死んだ従兄弟ハリーのように5年早く生まれていたらどうなっていたかという、ただならぬ偶然性に震えたことを覚えています。
一部の若者たちは、デアデビルのようなリスクを取ることで死に挑戦します。私の男性患者の一人は、複数の恐怖症と、何か大惨事がいつ起こってもおかしくないという恐怖に悩まされていました。彼は16歳でスカイダイビングを始め、何十回もダイブをしました。今振り返ってみると、これは彼自身の死への恐怖に対処する方法だったと考えているそうです。
歳月が流れるにつれて、若い成人期の二大課題—キャリアの追求と家族を始めること—によって、思春期の死への関心は脇に追いやられます。その後、30年が過ぎ、子どもたちが家を出て、職業の終わりが見え始めると、人生の中年の危機が突如として訪れ、死の不安が再び強烈に噴出します。人生の頂点に達し、前方の道を見つめると、その道がもはや上昇するのではなく、衰退と減退へと下り坂になっていくことを認識します。それ以降、死に対する関心は常に心の中にあるのです。
Epicurus practiced “medical philosophy” and insisted that just as a doctor treats the body, a philosopher must treat the soul. In his view, there was only one proper goal of philosophy: to alleviate human misery. And the root cause of misery? Epicurus believed it to be our omnipresent fear of death. The frightening vision of inevitable death, he said, interferes with one’s enjoyment of life and leaves no pleasure undisturbed. To alleviate the fear of death, he developed several powerful thought experiments that have helped me personally face death anxiety and offer the tools I use to help my patients. In the discussion that follows, I often refer to these valuable ideas.
My personal experience and clinical work have taught me that anxiety about dying waxes and wanes throughout the life cycle. Children at an early age cannot help but notice the glimmerings of mortality surrounding them—dead leaves, insects and pets, disappearing grandparents, grieving parents, endless acres of cemetery tombstones. Children may simply observe, wonder, and, following their parents’ example, remain silent. If they openly express their anxiety, their parents become noticeably uncomfortable and, of course, rush to offer comfort. Sometimes adults attempt to find soothing words, or transfer the whole matter into the distant future, or soothe children’s anxiety with death-denying tales of resurrection, eternal life, heaven, and reunion.
The fear of death ordinarily goes underground from about six to puberty, the same years Freud designated as the period of latent sexuality. Then, during adolescence, death anxiety erupts in force: teenagers often become preoccupied with death, and a few consider suicide. Many adolescents today may respond to death anxiety by becoming masters and dispensers of death in their second life in violent video games. Others defy death with gallows humor and death-taunting songs, or by watching horror films with friends. In my early adolescence, I went twice a week to a small cinema around the corner from my father’s store and, in concert with my friends, screamed during horror movies and gawked at the endless films depicting the barbarity of World War II. I remember shuddering silently at the sheer capriciousness of being born in 1931 rather than five years earlier, like my cousin Harry, who died in the slaughter of the Normandy invasion.
Some adolescents defy death by taking daredevil risks. One of my male patients—who had multiple phobias and a pervasive dread that something catastrophic could happen at any moment—told me how he began skydiving at the age of sixteen and took dozens of dives. Now, looking back, he believes this was a way of dealing with his persistent fear of his own mortality.
As the years go by, adolescent death concerns are pushed aside by the two major life tasks of young adulthood: pursuing a career and beginning a family. Then, three decades later, as children leave home and the end points of professional careers loom, the midlife crisis bursts upon us, and death anxiety once again erupts with great force. As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.
死を常に意識して生きるのは簡単ではありません。それは太陽を直視しようとするようなものです。耐えられる限度があるのです。私たちは恐怖に凍りついて生きることはできませんから、死の恐怖を和らげる方法を生み出します。私たちは子どもを通じて未来に自分を投影します; 富や名声を得て、ますます大きくなります; 強迫的な保護的儀式を発展させます; あるいは最終的な救済者への揺るぎない信念を抱きます。
自分の免疫に絶対的に自信を持つ人々は、しばしば他人や自分の安全を顧みることなく英雄的に生きます。さらに、他の人々は、愛する人、何かの目的、コミュニティ、あるいは神と一体化することによって、死の痛ましい孤立を超越しようと試みます。死の不安は、すべての宗教の母であり、どの宗教も何らかの形で私たちの有限性の苦悩を和らげようとします。文化を超えて形成された神は、永遠の命のビジョンを通して死の痛みを和らげるだけでなく、永遠の存在を提供することで恐怖に満ちた孤立を癒し、有意義な人生を送るための明確な青写真を示します。
しかし、最も堅固で尊敬される防御策でさえ、私たちは死の不安を完全に鎮めることはできません。それは常にそこにあり、心のどこか隠れた谷間に潜んでいます。おそらく、プラトンが言ったように、私たちは自分自身の最も深い部分に嘘をつくことはできないのでしょう。
もし私が紀元前300年頃の古代アテネの市民で、死の恐怖や悪夢を経験したとしたら、私の心をその恐怖の網から解放するために誰に助けを求めたでしょうか？おそらく、私はアゴラ（古代アテネで多くの重要な哲学学校があった場所）に足を運んだでしょう。プラトンが創設したアカデメイア（現在は彼の甥スピュシッポスが指導）や、かつてプラトンの学生であったが哲学的に異なり後継者に任命されなかったアリストテレスのリュケイオン（アリストテレスの学校）を通り過ぎ、ストア派やキニク派の学校も通り過ぎ、学生を探している放浪の哲学者たちを無視したでしょう。最終的にエピクロスの庭に到達し、そこで私は助けを見つけたのではないかと思います。
今日、手に負えない死の不安を抱える人々はどこに行くのでしょうか？一部は家族や友人に助けを求めます。他の人々は教会や療法に頼ります。さらに、他の人々はこのような本に頼るかもしれません。私は死に恐れを抱える多くの人々と働いてきました。私は、私が治療の仕事で積み重ねてきた観察、反省、介入が、死の不安を解消できない人々に重要な助けと洞察を提供できると信じています。
It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death’s terror. We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer.
Some people—supremely confident in their immunity—live heroically, often without regard for others or for their own safety. Still others attempt to transcend the painful separateness of death through merger—with a loved one, a cause, a community, or a Divine Being. Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude. God, as formulated transculturally, not only softens the pain of mortality through some vision of everlasting life but also palliates fearful isolation by offering an eternal presence, and provides a clear blueprint for living a meaningful life.
But despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind. Perhaps, as Plato says, we cannot lie to the deepest part of ourselves.
Had I been a citizen of ancient Athens circa 300 B.C.E. (a time often called the golden age of philosophy) and experienced a death panic or a nightmare, to whom would I have turned to clear my mind of the web of fear? It’s likely I’d have trudged off to the agora, a section of ancient Athens where many of the important schools of philosophy were located. I’d have walked past the Academy founded by Plato, now directed by his nephew, Speucippus; and also the Lyceum, the school of Aristotle, once a student of Plato, but too philosophically divergent to be appointed his successor. I’d have passed the schools of the Stoics and the Cynics and ignored any itinerant philosophers searching for students. Finally, I’d have reached the Garden of Epicurus, and there I think I would have found help.
Where today do people with unmanageable death anxiety turn? Some seek help from their family and friends; others turn to their church or to therapy; still others may consult a book such as this. I’ve worked with a great many individuals terrified by death. I believe that the observations, reflections, and interventions I’ve developed in a lifetime of therapeutic work can offer significant help and insight to those who cannot dispel death anxiety on their own.
