Why Angels Don't Need Egos

Personal Perspective: A different way of viewing cognitive decline and dementia.

Reviewed by Lybi Ma

As we approach the end of Alzheimer’s Month, I have been considering the topic of cognitive decline and impending death.

Cultural historian Lawrence Samuel wrote an interesting post for Psychology Today about the difficulty we have conceiving of our own deaths, noting that denial is perhaps a survival mechanism. As he points out: “More than any single factor, however, it is that death and dying run counter to virtually all of the nation’s defining values, for example, youth, beauty, progress, achievement, winning, optimism, and independence.”

Watching anyone, and especially a loved one, plummet into cognitive decline and onto the pathway of the fatal, is very sad. Your mother looks at you, struggling to identify exactly who you are. Your father can’t seem to remember any words and rambles incoherently. People who were once examples of vital humanity seem discombobulated, without any sense of the meaning of their surroundings. It’s no surprise that seeing, much less caring for, a family member with dementia and cognitive decline is perhaps one of the hardest experiences of life.

But wait a moment. Let’s look at the trajectory of human existence.

One could argue that human experience is about doing and being. For most of our lives, we are focused on doing things. We want to achieve different goals, some of which have meaning, like being a great parent, following a profession that is about helping others, and volunteering and contributing to great causes and movements. But lots of other actions are about surviving, physically, mentally, and financially. However, as we age, and especially as we enter later years, we transition to doing less and being more, from physical activity to meaningful reflection.

In several books, including Bronnie Ware’s Five Regrets of the Dying, people in their last days reflect on the fact that they didn’t be more, not that they didn’t do more. For example, they regret the excess time spent at work at the expense of time with family.

Naturally, being and doing are overlapping concepts. If you want to donate to a cause you believe in, you still have to write the check. But the emphasis is on meaning and being, while the doing—the check writing—becomes a distant second in terms of significance or even relevance.

Of course, it is sad to view what we see as a devolution of a human being. But suppose it’s not devolution but rather evolution?

There are many views of what, if anything, happens after a person dies. Let’s suppose there is some afterlife where our spirit goes after we leave humanity behind. If this is indeed eternal, then the rules and processes that guide human existence are no longer necessary.

The human mind-body’s guiding priority is survival, which wouldn’t be necessary in eternity. There would be no need for competing emotions, just the need for love and compassion. There’s no need for an autonomic nervous system in heaven.

There would be no need for memory. While some memories can be delightful, many make us incredibly vulnerable to manipulation and conditioning. Memories can and do imprint our human identity. There would be no need for memory in this version of the afterlife. You would not need to learn how to do things because you wouldn’t be doing anything. You would just be.

In this vision of the afterlife, there would also be no need for words. Words are used to manipulate, frame, and distort. We’d be better off without words. If you want an example, get to know dogs. You don’t need words to convey love and compassion.

There would be no need for an id—instincts, superego—conscience, or ego. There would be no need for self. You would just be a loving, compassionate presence with no need whatsoever to articulate anything. Just be.

So, as we watch our loved ones lose their memory, lose their language, and seemingly lose their identity, perhaps they are indeed transitioning to a better state, where most human characteristics that can guide us at first but ultimately distract and burden us, are no longer necessary.

Perhaps.

PS: I have created a poem around this topic.