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The Burden of Being


    Modern life is full of noise and distractions. We are always busy with our phones, our jobs, and our problems. We don't often have time to stop and think about the deeper things in life. This is because thinking too much can be scary. When we are quiet, we might have to face a very hard question: Why do we live, if we are all going to die?
    A philosopher named Peter Wessel Zapfe looked at this question. He believed that our human mind is a kind of mistake in nature. We are the only animals who know that we will die one day. Other animals just live without this knowledge.
Because of this, we are forced to live in a strange way. We have to act like we will live forever, even though we know we won't. This creates a deep feeling of emptiness inside us. It is the feeling that comes when we are not distracted anymore.
    To avoid this painful feeling, humans have created special ways to protect themselves. Zapfe called these "defense mechanisms." He said they are not tools for finding the truth, but for keeping us from going crazy when we think about the truth.
    The first defense is called denial. This is when we simply refuse to accept a fact. We pretend that things are not as bad as they are. You can see this in how people have small, meaningless conversations. We often say "I'm fine," even when we are not. This is a way of hiding the difficult truth.
    The second defense is isolation. We do this by putting our bad or scary thoughts in a separate mental box. We don't let these thoughts come out and bother us. This allows us to keep working and doing our normal things. Our society also does this by not talking about very difficult topics.
    The third defense is anchoring. This means we create a feeling of meaning for things that don't actually have a meaning. We hold on to ideas like our country, our religion, or our family. We use these ideas to feel like our lives are important and not random. But sometimes, these anchors can stop us from thinking freely.
    The fourth and final defense is sublimation. This is when we turn our suffering into something else, like art or a theory. We try to make our pain useful. For example, a sad person might write a beautiful song. A lonely person might write a book. It doesn't fix the original problem, but it makes the pain easier to carry.
Sublimation is a clever trick. It makes us feel like our pain has a purpose, but it doesn't change the fact that we are still in pain. We are just re-arranging our problems into a nicer form.
    Zapfe had a very extreme idea. He believed that the kindest thing a person could do is to not have children. He called this "existential anti-natalism." He felt it was wrong to bring a new person into a world where they would have to suffer the same way.
    In the end, Zapfe said we have a choice. We can either keep living inside the lies we've made, or we can be brave and face the real, hard truth. Most people choose to stay with the lies because it is easier.
    Only a few people will be brave enough to accept the truth and keep going. They accept that life is hard, and they move forward without needing easy answers. They live with the burden of reality.

Psyfluence. (2025, August 5). The 4 lies that support your life - Peter Wessel Zapffe [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFec_8Botb0
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