Death and Wisdom: Presentation version

Death and Wisdom

                After reading through “The Last Lecture”, I sat back and reflected. I had remembered a few articles here and there in magazines about people who have near death experiences and afterwards live lives that I believe most of us would call flourishing. Even more so, such as in the case of Randy Pausch, those who are given a set time left to live seem to suddenly live lives that seem, at least on the outside, to be more flourishing.  

With this thought I decided that there must be some type of knowledge, some wisdom that the people in question take away from the experience. As such I continued my reflection, and asked the basic question ‘why?’.

It seems to me that people at some point of inner reflection, have an understanding of what things in their lives are important. What was it that caused these people at the end of their lives to suddenly start living life in such a way?

I formed a basic hypothesis with the idea of people innately having some such knowledge, it is as follows:

People have a base understanding of what things in their lives are ‘ultimately important’ and worthwhile. It is due to a factor I term the ‘illusion of time’ that a person loses sight of those things of importance. When a person approaches certain death with the knowledge of a given timeline, the ‘wisdom’ gained shatters the ‘illusion of time’ and the ‘ultimately important’ things come into focus once more for the person in question. The person then lives a life that is more fulfilling or flourishing.

Ultimately important – This term is used to describe ‘valuable dimensions of our lives’ as Valerie Tiberius calls them in “The Reflective Life: Wisdom and Happiness for Real People” [Tiberius218]. These are the things of which are really worthwhile that we tend to lose perspective on [Tiberius 217].

Illusion of time - This is essentially the opposite of what is dubbed as an ‘existential crisis’ as described by Gerald Corey in “Theory and Practice of Counseling & Psychotherapy” and by Viktor Frankl in “Man’s Search for Meaning”. The ‘illusion of time’ is the feeling of having an infinite amount of time even though a person acknowledges mentally or academically that their time is finite. This illusion comes from a person’s unconscious forward-looking temporal analogy regarding their own lifespan. Basically a person unconsciously seems to think ‘I lived today, and yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that, (and so on). Therefore I will live tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after (and so on).’ The fallacy of this is, of course, that by definition we are finite beings thereby there must be a day in the future in which a person will not live.

Wisdom – This is the unknown factor. I use this term here to represent some type of knowledge or understanding that only seems to occur when a person is confronted with their own mortality.

                I approached the interviews with this hypothesis in mind, firmly believing that it was correct. It was not until I met with Moshe Gittelson (LCSW) that I felt it necessary to reevaluate my hypothesis. In the interview he made a statement that caused a review on my part of the other interviews and even a few of the source materials. With this review, I have now formed a new hypothesis, which is formed on an insight from the interviews. The insight is as follows:

                                A person faces death in the same way that they have faced life.

                                                Or

An agent deals with their end in the same manner in which they have faced the rest of their existence.

Case one: Melissa Massey (LPC)

Illness: Chronic Pancreatic Shutdown

Abstract:

                Melissa was the first professional counselor that I had interviewed. Initially the conversation centered on grief counseling and end of life counseling. At some point in the conversation she mentioned that she was speaking from experience. Asking for explanation she explains that she has had multiple cases of pancreatic shutdown.  

During an operation due to her illness, it seems that she had almost died twice. She explained in the interview that the experience caused her to reevaluate her life and how she lived it. She then explained how she had moved away from this reevaluation due to outside factors (work). She has since been hounded by doctors to undergo more surgeries to extend her life, but it is still a struggle for her to prioritize her personal needs above her responsibilities at work.

Conclusion:

                Melissa values her work and the responsibilities that her work implies. She lives her life for those responsibilities, and even given the information from her doctor that she may not live to see the age of 40, she still refuses to prioritize her own health above her work.

Case Two: [name withheld]

[Redacted]

Case Three: Ruby Hutchins

Illness: Congestive Heart Failure

Abstract:

                Ruby Hutchins is a devout Christian, to the point that in the interview, she treated it as if she were ’giving her testimony’. Mrs. Hutchins is retired and divorced with three children, all adults at this time. In 2001 she was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and given a lifespan of no more than ten years.

                Nine years later, Mrs. Hutchins is convinced that her lifespan as of this point stems from her faith in God. “Jesus is my doctor,” was not only the theme of the interview, but also stated outright in the dialogue. Mrs. Hutchins faces her end much the same way as she has lived her life, with the absolute certainty that her Lord and God will guide her regardless.

Case Four: Tia Cash

Status: Younger Sister passed away within the past year

Abstract:

                Tia Cash’s situation is slightly different. She is not ill, but has recently dealt with the sudden death of her younger sister within the past year. Having interviewed her prior to the rejection of my initial hypothesis, I felt it would be insightful to learn whether or not a person considering their mortality due to the passing of a loved one would influence the person’s outlook on their own mortality.

In the interview, Mrs. Cash states that she tries to be more oriented on her family and being sure that she shows compassion toward the people around her. She also states that she tries to be more lenient with herself if she does not accomplish everything she sets out to do.

Conclusion:

                I refrain from calling Mrs. Cash a procrastinator, but I do point out that, having known her for a number of years, her attitude toward things that don’t get accomplished has always been that of one who doesn’t view it as a high priority. Mrs. Cash is well known among her friends to have in depth conversations with strangers, including wrong numbers, as she has always tried to show compassion to those around her.

Case Five: Randy Pausch (Deceased)

Illness: Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract:

                Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and died from Pancreatic Cancer on July 25^th, 2008. He is of course famous for giving “The Last Lecture” and for the book with the same title.

                During the lecture, Professor Pausch gives an account of the values and takeaways that he wanted to impress upon his own children. The reason that I felt it necessary to include a few of his clips is that it was after the insight that I realized that he had confirmed the insight in an interview.

                During this interview with the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Pausch makes two assertions, that it was because he was a lecturer that he chose to give a lecture, and that his preparations for the end of his life was approached by him as an engineering problem[Pausch/WSJ July 30^th, 2008].

The take away from this project is that Moshe’s commentary and the insight gained from it are correct, and the wisdom that can be gained is as follows:

                One faces death in the same manner as they face life. 

[This blog post will be edited upon completion of the project]

The problem with defining wisdom…

                At the end of the article on wisdom by Sharon Ryan located on the Stanford Encyclopedia site, Ryan concludes that a general understanding of the nature of wisdom is as such:

                S is wise iff:

1)      S has extensive factual and theoretical knowledge.

2)      S knows how to live well.

3)      S is successful at living well.

4)      S has very few unjustified beliefs.

[Ryan 1]

                I understand, after reading over her entry, the desire she has to have a definition that holds each of the premises, as she is answering certain concerns located within previous definitions of wisdom, such as the ideas of the humility theories and such [Ryan 1].

                The 1^st problem: Too much luck…

                Honestly, it is my opinion that the theory that Ryan has set forth relies a little too much on luck. Condition three is a perfect example of this. According to ones personal definition, an agent [S] may or may not be ’living well’ due to various factors out of their control. If one is born at the lowest tier of the economic scale, would someone such as Ryan ever look at that person and honestly believe that [S]  is successful at living well?

                Likewise, isn’t it probable that a Paris Hilton would look upon the life conditions of someone such as Ryan [I am assuming that Ryan is an average academic in this example] and reject that a person in academia could be successful at ‘living well’?

                Of course this view could be un-courteous to Ryan as she does point toward Nozick for a definition on the aspect of what it takes to ‘live well’, but even in its abstractedness, it is still vulnerable to the concept that ‘living well’ could have a multitude of definitions and no way to reconcile them.  What’s worse, after working on my end of term project, I have met a few people that I would consider wise and leading flourishing lives, yet I shrink from the idea that they are ‘living well’ as their illness has noticeably taken something away from their quality of life…

It seems that condition two and three suffers from an extreme amount of vagueness, to the point of being ludicrous. Let us assume that we hold a vague idea of what ‘the good’ is, which by itself is another debate entirely. To know what the ‘good life’ entails we would have to come from our assumed definition of ‘the good’ and then entrench ourselves in a definitional warfare that would have to account for various cultures, implications, religions and more. To be blunt, I don’t think one could even begin to satisfactorily designate what ‘the good life’ is in such a way that it would entail everything that could be considered ‘the good life’.

                I point out this as it seems that if an agent were wise, it would be an aspect to that agent that would be apparent to more than just the people who agree with the agent on what ‘living well’ entails.

                The 2^nd problem: Wise yet illiterate?

                Condition one states the need for knowledge to be wise [Ryan 1]. I do grant Ryan that it seems that an agent should be in possession of a certain level or kind of knowledge before being considered wise, but it seems that ‘extensive’ is a bit strong for such an explanation.

                Granted, in the world of philosophers as I’ve seemed to have noticed, there is this strain of elitism present. There appears this overwhelming need for many people to browbeat others with their intellect, and yet I have difficulty believing that many of these individuals are on the correct road to wisdom. 

                A person that comes to mind is my grandfather. This is a man that I would claim to be wise, or at least in possession of a certain type of wisdom. The man has a high school education and quite a bit of mechanics certificates and whatever schooling those certificates require, but the man learned quite a bit of this in the Air Force as he never attended a university. My grandfather has a certain type of ‘earthy wisdom’ in which I have trusted with a number of issues, yet it would seem that under condition one that he would not be in possession of ‘wisdom’.

                Let us take this a step further and ask about people who lived centuries ago, back when most of the population was illiterate. Would this mean that the only wise people in existence were the academics and the bourgeois? I am uncomfortable with such an assumption and with what I believe is good reason. I have met a number of educated people who fit condition one, yet they were by far the most unwise individuals I’ve ever known.

               

                Overall, I understand what Ryan is trying to accomplish, and I applause her courage at doing so. It just doesn’t seem that what ‘wisdom’ entails can be couched so comfortably in the terms of academia as she is attempting. There seems to be qualities involved that her conditions touch upon, but don’t actually represent.

 -Tank

Sharon Ryan, 2007 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/