I Can't Stop Fantasizing About My Own Funeral
Stephen Adubato on death as a cure for narcissism.
edits
, a Substack which strives to be “a sort of court jester, attempting to bring some levity into a very self-serious culture.” His essays and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of venues, from the New York Times to The Blaze. His eclectic tastes — for Camille Paglia, reggaeton, and Andy Warhol — along with his shameless, ironic style make him well-suited for the themes of today’s essay: narcissism and death.— Santiago Ramos, executive editor
Since I was six years old, I’ve had a bizarre habit of fantasizing about my own funeral. Fear not, this essay is not a death wish or suicide note. I don’t want my life to end … at least not literally. But I can’t deny being allured by the image of my funeral — of the liturgical arrangements, the flowers and commemorative photos, the little laminated cards with kitschy religious graphic on the front and a generic Bible verse and the dates of my sunrise and sunset on the back, and the people reminiscing about the good times with me, eulogizing my greatest virtues, and mourning the loss of my beloved presence in their lives, as they console themselves by reminding each other that I’m in a better place.
My fantasy started when a distant aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer. As soon as the news broke, everyone in my family started talking about how worried they were about her. Calls were made about helping to take her to chemo appointments and cooking meals for her. This outpouring of sympathy and concern came to me as a surprise: for as long as I can remember, my aunt had been persona non grata in my family. Yet now, everyone was fawning over her and expressing their concern for her well-being. When we visited her, I saw a pile of gifts in one corner. “Those are my cancer gifts,” she explained to me.
A surge of envy rose up in my soul. Where were MY cancer gifts? My aunt’s rewards flew in the face of all the meritocratic messaging I received at home and at school about how you had to behave well and work hard in order to earn rewards. And now her diagnosis — which she did nothing to earn — somehow merited her receiving gifts, special treatment, and being showered with attention?
About nine months later, my aunt passed away at the age of 58. At the funeral, people sobbed about how much they were going to miss her. Her eulogizers conveniently forgot all of her worst attributes and focused on her good ones. I was amazed by how the simple act of dying could magically erase someone’s errors and incite people to amplify all of the good they’ve done. Why couldn’t this magic wand also be waved over my strengths and weaknesses? And more importantly, why couldn’t I also be the center of attention — the object of gushing praise and affection — the way she was?
As I grew up, I realized that being jealous of dead people and fantasizing about my own funeral was not exactly a normal thing to do. I don’t need to be told that there’s something deeply narcissistic and, quite frankly, creepy about this morbid habit. That being said, I’ve yet to fully shake off that green monster of envy whenever attending a funeral. Just as I’ll always take mental note of my attributes that people are most likely to miss most about me and of my achievements that they are likely to mention after my passing (I’ll often half-jokingly remark to myself that “that’ll def go into my funeral file”).
I’m sure you’re wondering at this point why I’d disclose such an embarrassing fact about myself. What good can it do to own up to our most outlandish fantasies? The reality is that as much as my narcissistic ideations may have taken shape in a rather particular (and absurd) form, we all are subject to such ideations — especially those of us who grew up in what Christopher Lasch calls a “culture of narcissism.” I’m thinking of my fellow millennials in particular, who grew up in the ravages of a society that not only permitted but enabled pathological narcissistic tendencies. And thanks to recent events in my own life, I’ve realized that the solution is not to keep hush about our worst tendencies out of respect for social conventions, but rather to work through them humbly, frankly, and with a bit of a self-deprecatory sense of humor.
Much of my ability to do that work is indebted to having read Lasch’s 1979 magnum opus, The Culture of Narcissism, which helped me in a way that no psychologist has been able to thus far. The book attempts to highlight the ways that the socioeconomic changes during the transition from early- to late-phase industrial capitalism have given rise to certain psychological and cultural phenomena. In particular, Lasch focuses on how the vices of “pride and acquisitiveness” eventually gave way to those of “vanity” and to pathological narcissism, which instead seeks respect from others on the basis of one’s “personal attributes” rather than from the substance and quality of one’s achievements. “The good opinion of friends and neighbors,” Lasch writes, “which formerly informed a man that he had lived a useful life, rested on appreciation of his accomplishments.” But now, people “wish to be not so much esteemed as admired” and “to be envied rather than respected.”
The narcissist seeks the adoration of an audience, and is plagued by the feeling that his actions are meaningless in themselves, and, thus, that he will never fully gratify his need for attention and approval.
Without an objective measurement with which to judge the value of one’s actions — and thus, one’s character — the narcissist is a “performer” perpetually competing with others for the attention of the crowd, sometimes resorting to do so by any means necessary. The strongest strategy for beating out the competition and achieving the complete fulfillment of my need for attention is to pull the ultimate trump card: dying.
Lasch goes on to point to Freud’s “controversial hypothesis of a death instinct, better described as a longing for absolute equilibrium.” The unleashing of the pleasure principle eventually morphs into the “longing for the complete cessation of tension” that comes along with dying. The “Nirvana principle” is the “backward quest for absolute peace.” And “since narcissism does not acknowledge” the existence of “objects distinct from the self,” it “has no fear of death.”
I couldn’t help but recognize Lasch’s claims about the correlation between the cutthroat competition bred by the narcissistic attention economy and the Freudian death instinct within the workings of my own wayward psyche. The simple fact was that death was a guaranteed fast track toward being absolved of all moral responsibility and garnering everyone’s attention and admiration. Rationally speaking, I know I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the spectacle of my own funeral while lying dead in my coffin. But still, the very act of fantasizing about the moment continued to fascinate and excite me.
But all this irrational fantasizing was turned upside down after two very close friends — both of whom happened to be just a year younger than me — died within the span of eight months from each other.
Ian and John’s funeral festivities — the eulogies, the Facebook memories and Instagram photos shared, the memorial scholarships — triggered my typical death-envy complex. But it also opened the door to a new, rather different sensation. There was something about the fact that their deaths were so untimely, and that the memories shared were not the typical “play up the good, downplay the bad” style fare. These two friends were good — dare I say, holy — people through and through. Though not devoid of faults, they were selflessly committed to their relationships with others and had their eyes — and hearts — set on higher, eternal ideals.
As much as I was jealous of the attention they were getting and longed for the day that people would be forced to absolve me of my shortcomings and laud my most wondrous attributes, I started to find myself more attracted to the prospect of emulating their actions which garnered them so much praise and affection — perhaps more so than the prospect of garnering praise and affection. Sure, I still wanted the attention. But I also wanted to dedicate myself to an ideal that would last beyond my stint on earth and that would be of genuine value to others — in the same way my friends did — even more.
When the 16th century Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila prayed that God release her already from the “iron prison” that is life and hasten her death — whose “sweetness” she longed for — it was less a narcissistic plea to be absolved from her earthly responsibilities than it was a recognition that the pleasures of her time on earth were nothing compared to the eternal bliss awaiting her in the afterlife. On my least virtuous (that is, my most snowflake-y millennial) days, I continue to fantasize about the day when I’ll be relieved of the toil of everyday life and be the object of numerous people’s adoration. But on my best days, my death wish takes the shape of Teresa of Ávila’s prayer — which on one hand recognizes the emptiness of everyday life on earth (including attention from others), but on the other accepts the fact that it is precisely through our fidelity to everyday responsibilities and relationships — the same kind that my two friends exemplified — that we enter into communion with the Eternal and, thus, inch our way closer to true, lasting happiness.
And so, I remain trapped in this tension between my base and nobler selves; between being an insufferable millennial with severely narcissistic tendencies, and intuiting that there’s Something greater and more beautiful that beckons me toward It. I’m sure I’ll continue to fantasize about my funeral until the day it finally arrives — but for varying reasons, depending on which way the wind blows, and which of my proclivities dominates my conscience on any given day. Hopefully God’s sense of humor will be kindled by my own.
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