Viewing Death Through the Ego

I was popping up the roof tent on my car earlier this week and noticed the remains of roughly 150 dead bugs smeared along the front.

I suppose this is what comes from 1500 miles of driving over five days.

While the dead bugs were pretty gross, and a little annoying (now I need to get the car washed again), I didn’t think much about the 150 lives that this cross-country drive has just taken.

I took a moment to compare my emotional reaction in that scenario with one I experienced not long ago, while accidentally driving over a chipmunk on the road. In that instance, I winced…squirming from the guilt and sorrow that a cute little chipmunk’s life had just been taken.

I then compared my emotional reaction to one on an evening last week when I came close to hitting a deer on the back-country roads of the Adirondacks. I imagine that if this deer had been hit and its life had been taken, I would have been down on my knees in the middle of the road sobbing.

Why is it that our emotional reaction to death varies so much based on what it is that’s died?

Do we believe that the deer possesses a greater depth of consciousness than the chipmunk and therefore experiences deeper suffering?

Is the deer deserving of more sympathy simply because it is larger than the chipmunk and bug?

Do we more seriously mourn the death of deer just because there are fewer of them out there?

I think our response is purely egoic.

We see ourselves in the deer more than we do in the chipmunk or bug.

When the deer’s life is taken, we imagine our own life taken…which cultivates sadness and fear within us.

The phenomena becomes even more true when we witness the death of a dog, a fellow human being, or a person with whom we share certain characteristics.

Our response to these tragedies is clearly nothing more than a (conscious or unconscious) self-centered reaction to the imagined end of our own life.

Why else would such disparity exist around our response to the end of sentient life?

We may think we’re heros for taking an interest in tragedy that occurs in our backyard, our country, or our species…but unless we’re willing to extend the same sympathy to all sentient life, we’re simply reinforcing an egoic shield that divides us from all else that is.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It’s perfectly reasonable to view the world through the lens of our own ego.

It’s important though that we recognize when we are doing so- that we don’t fool ourselves into believing otherwise.

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