|
What separates the human animal from the other animals is the will and the potential ability to contemplate death consciously.
It naturally follows that this is our human responsibility.
Instead, what we find is primarily a world full of deluded "individuals" that wear masks as a bulwark against death and where elaborate anthropomorphic institutions of hero worship have been established to fend off death.
All of this is natural, however, but as humans evolve technology, they are steadily losing touch with meaning as the technology progresses too quickly, and thus, in general, a slow, gradual de-evolution trend (in modern nation-states mostly) is taking place whereby our minds are becoming mentally sick(er), and our bodies are becoming weak(er).
So, none of that is not to say that ritual does not have its place though.
What we find in some cultures, as opposed to say, the mass in Catholicism which has become sterile, is the virile ritual of say, the Spanish Bullfight, La Corrida, where man confronts his animal nature (the mastery of utilizing and controlling instinctual fear) and learns about his true human animal nature. Of course, the Spanish culture is well-steeped in meditation upon death. Just look to Lorca's writing or Picasso's painting.
|