Who wants to live forever? Coping with death anxiety.

'Longevity' brand of condensed milk. I think the branding suggests the milk is long life, not that you will live any longer if you drink this product.

I've always been moved by the Queen song 'Who wants to live forever'. Written by Brian May the song was used in the death scene of the movie Highlander where immortal warrior Connor played by Christopher Lambert comforts his dying wife and mortal Heather -Beatie Edney. Sung by Brian May and Freddie Mercury, the song is made all the more poignant by the knowledge we now have of Mercury's ill health and death. We will of course all die, this is the karma of birth, an inconvenient truth we so often try to ignore, though we live so often as if we are immortal.

'Who wants to live for forever

who wants to live forever

But touch my tears with your lips

Touch my world with your fingertips

And we can have forever

And we can love forever

Forever  is our today'

The song concludes with Mercury's soaring vocal on the line 'Who wants forever anyway'.

These are questions we trend to shy away from, but what would it be like to live forever?  How aware are we of our own mortality? Are we scared of death? These are themes that are always present in psychotherapy but often at a less conscious more subterranean level. What is it about the existential given of death that frightens us so much? Existentialist psychotherapist Irvin Yalom writes well on this subject, arguing 'the idea of death can save us' for 'preparing for death is preparing for life'. When we face death we overcome procrastination and stop postponing we begin to really assess our priorities in life, and live more authentically in touch with our needs.

Halloween window display, Spitalfields London.

From a Buddhist perspective mindfulness is a way of dealing with death anxiety. As we become more aware, more present, we see that death and life are not separate, and that impermanence enables change and growth, and can motivate us to live fuller lives and achieve our goals. When we know we must die we learn how to live, if we don't confront our anxiety about death, the anxiety will manifest in other ways-such as trying to cheat death through reckless dare-devil behaviour or the opposite-risk adverse behaviour, hypochondriasis, procrastination and fantasies of rescue. We can't cheat death, but death can save us.

So as the saying goes carpe diem, seize the day but don't forget your dreams either -carpe noctem, seize the night.....