Is willful ignorance about one's own mortality escapism?

Question

I don't mean if someone is dying of cancer and they refuse treatment or something -- I'm saying if a healthy person who is unhappy obsessing over his own inevitable death one day chooses to ignore this in order to relax and be happy, is this escapism? Is it a petty, cowardly act? Should one obsess over it, meditate on it and try and somehow find peace with it, or just live their life - and is doing the latter escapism? Is pushing it out of one's mind some kind of desperate coping mechanism, where meditating on it until you find peace with it is the only way to confront this issue bravely, or is the opposite true?

Answer 1

Willful ignorance in this case may be escapism, but only as a response to great anxiety surrounding the concept and reality of mortality. If one could confront and accept this notion without obsessing or worrying about it as a bad or terrifying condition, then there would be no reason to escape it. We escape from things that we fear; if we can accept mortality as natural and not inherently bad, there will be no reason to avoid the concept or to choose ignorance.

There is a median to the two extremes of hyper-rationally attacking the concept of mortality or fearing it so much so that it is disabling, which is embracing the unknown and living on knowing life is not forever but that such a truth is not a negative thing to fear and be ignorant of.

Escapism in and of itself could be characterized as cowardly in some contexts, but we all engage in it to some degree. Are we all cowards then? Many people play fantasy games or drift off in their imaginations to escape a relentless reality. It is a preservation of mental health to take mental vacations from tackling every philosophical question with endless voracity. It provides a balance so that we can approach these challenging concepts without fear of debilitation from being so absorbed.

I hope this helps!

-Miss D