Mindhacks – Love and the Terror Management Theory:
“The theory suggests we have various ways of keeping the fear of death out of our conscious mind, and of understanding what makes our life meaningful.
Traditionally, researchers have focused on the effect of a social element – how we feel we fit in to our culture’s ideas about what makes a meaningful life, and a personal element – how we feel about ourselves, but more recently psychologists have been focusing on love as one of the most important ways of managing our existential fears.
Love beyond life is a constant poetic theme, and yet these are not simply poetic theories, they have been drawn from empirical research.
Never afraid to strip the poetry from the profound, cognitive scientists have labelled their most important existential paradigm “mortality salience”.
I already published Professor’s Louis Levy immortal speech on love in Crimes and Misdemeanors. In the concluding scene of the movie Professor Louis Levy speaks more directly about the fear.
“We’re all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.”
Further Reading: