Thanatophilia involves a complex relationship with finitude, where death is loved for itself, as a horizon, as a secret, or as the promise of definitive peace. But it is also, and more concretely, an attraction to everything that has ceased to live: a veneration of objects over beings, of the past over the present.
Death can reassure
Thanatophilic attraction is not born of a morbid taste, but of a need for rest: for some, death embodies the end of the ordeal, the cessation of torments, a certainty that life cannot offer. If some develop thanatophilic tendencies, it is because death, precisely because it is inert, appears predictable, controllable, and permanent. Faced with a changing and uncertain world, what is dead offers a stable refuge. From this arises nostalgia, which takes pleasure in what has always been but no longer is. Deep down, we all cultivate this tendency a little by cherishing what has disappeared and yet still forms a small part of us.
What is the cult of life?
Biophilia is perhaps rarer than one might think. Economics, as a dead science, tends to want to control everything, foresee everything, master everything—in short, to escape the unpredictability of life. Yet it is ideologies focused on matter that govern our existence, and with them, fundamentally thanatophilic discourses. By reducing beings to machines, to instruments of production, they have been dispossessed of their vital essence to become docile pawns in a perfectly controllable game. But what lives, by definition, cannot be mastered: it is nature that guides it. A wild animal is uncontrollable, unlike the domesticated animal, which has lost its share of life to become almost an object.
Life is wealth, life is life: dead wealth vs living wealth
The only wealth that truly belongs to us is our consciousness, which we have the responsibility to help grow. Believing that the goods our hands can grasp belong to us forever is an illusion. They may first slip through our fingers before our last breath; and they will not accompany us beyond death, even if, like a pharaoh, we are buried with all our treasures.
You are not what you have
Men overvalue having at the expense of being, because we live in a system that never ceases to proclaim that only having exists, to the point of making being forgotten. Yet this domination is artificial: the only real and lasting hierarchy is that of the quality of our soul, which is measured neither in dollars nor in euros. God may grant us the chance to live in a rich country, but He observes our conduct just as much when we are materially fulfilled. Nothing is easier than discerning a man’s true nature: simply give him power. That is when he reveals his true face, when he is allowed to do whatever he wants. If you believe yourself virtuous, observe yourself in the presence of those who have little (materially): are you generous and benevolent, or contemptuous and cruel? Power is only a magnifying glass that enlarges what you are. If you are incapable of benevolence when you hold power, perhaps it is reasonable to artificially deprive yourself of it. Thus, if you find that money makes you presumptuous, perhaps you should choose a profession that brings you less of it.
If you want to be alive, cultivate your living wealth
A Chinese proverb says: Money is dead wealth whereas children are living wealth.
If we were to crudely classify the forms of wealth, it would suffice to separate the inner and the outer. Your moral qualities, your wisdom, your conduct are your inner wealth. Conversely, your possessions, your clothes, your goods are your outer wealth. The former are living, the latter are dead. The former are dynamic, evolving, animated; the latter are static, fixed, and lifeless. Of course, one cannot reduce oneself to living only on love and fresh water: dead wealth provides a foundation for the development of living wealth. Without a roof or a home, one could not cultivate one’s inner qualities in the best possible way. Security and physiological needs are confined above all to what is called dead wealth. The problem is that we remain stuck at this level, seeking only material wealth out of fear of lacking, out of greed, out of a form of apathy toward the possibilities of human development. Those who have abandoned the pursuit of living wealth end up themselves becoming like dead wood. To maintain the inner fire, one must maintain a hierarchy and respect, so to speak, a kind of cosmic order: dead wealth must be subordinated to living wealth. If your moral compass is oriented toward what is dead, you risk missing your life.
Dead wealth allows one to help the living after death
One of the ways the dead help the living is through the inheritance they leave behind. If certain ill-gotten riches can become a burden, the fact remains that people who manage to accumulate capital and pass it on to subsequent generations continue to act positively after their death. Such could be the true meaning of dead wealth: continuing to ensure the material security of those we love, even when we are no longer here. This might be the true purpose of dead wealth: continuing to offer support even when we are no longer here. That said, this desire to help after our death must not divert us from the true meaning of life, which is to build a genuine living wealth in order to inspire the living as long as we can. Nothing beautiful could be built without that spark of light offered by living wealth. Any project not illuminated by a living wealth could not truly endure. The living inevitably attracts light and greatness, whereas dead wealth leads only to darkness if one decides to make it one’s guide.
Your true legacy is in the realm of the soul
While of course you can help your loved ones through the inheritance you leave them after your death, your true legacy is elsewhere. Your life is your message. The way you lived, how you behaved, and what you managed to build is what truly deserves your attention when it comes to legacy. Live to transmit, but make sure that what you transmit nourishes above all the soul and not the perishable dimension of existence.
