The Age of Coronavirus - Death, Destruction and Nourishment

In the age of Coronavirus, even writing the name feels like writing about that-which-shall-not-be-named, for it is a pandemic spreading rapidly and killing many. I spent many hours and days reading endlessly about this “novel coronavirus,” panicking while also never forgetting to wash my hands.

It is so easy for each and any one of us to get hooked to this need for clarity. Reading gives the illusion that it is all in our control, that somehow reading more about it will keep things in control, in check. What am I really fearing? What are we all really fearing?

Deep breaths I took, and I began listening to a hymn, a chant to Shiva, who in Hindu mythology is referred to as the lord of destruction. The chant is called ‘Maha Mrityunjay Mantra.’ According to the legend, the chant was given by Shiva and passed on to a sage and his disciples and was eventually used to release Moon who was in immense suffering as he was cursed by a King. Popularly this chant is also referred to as ‘the death-conquering-chant.’

The chant goes: 'Om Tryambakam yajamahe, sugandhim pushtivardhanamUrvaarukamiva bandhanan-mrityormoksheeya maamritaat'

Roughly translated, the words read: 'We worship you, the one with three eyes, who is beautiful and who nourishes all. Like the fruit falls off from the bondage of the stem, may we be liberated from death, from mortality'

That which creates also destroys, that which destroys also creates – and that is the truth of life.

I realized that during these troubled times, where rapidly a new breed of coronavirus is spreading like wildfire between humans, that we are all in some ways struggling with life and death, that we are being reminded of the struggles of wanting to keep alive and also nearing death – these times are evoking very early and primitive memories in each of us of struggling to stay alive and also feeling like we are about to die at the same time – something that we have all lived through when we were very young, when we were just born. A mother and a new-born baby continuously strive together, fighting and fearing death each second that they are alive.

A newborn baby as soon as she’s born, is faced with the threat of death – that she could die, she may not be able to breathe, she may not get enough breath, that she may not get the comfort of her mother’s arms – even if just for a couple of seconds, that she may die. Our birth happens with death, with the struggle of death. And it is something that in our lives we are continuously reminded of, that our fears are close to, that also in some senses keep us alive. A new mother too dies and comes alive continuously. The first year of life, is spent with the mother and the baby closely knit together, just fighting death and coming alive all the time (Klein, 1946).

We are all birthed with these feelings and impulses of anger, aggression, an instinct to destroy, to kill, to create, to live – and it’s always so closely intertwined. Our relationship with how we make meaning of how to live, is so closely knit with these early feelings that we have lived through. And perhaps, it is these early anxieties that we are being reminded of while together struggling with this new pandemic. Will I live or will I die? Will my mother live, or will she die?

An animated series, ‘3 Below – Tales of Arcadia,’ struck a similar line of thought while I watched the show. The plot of the series centres around alien children who land upon earth. The alien children are shown to be fighting demons and devils, trying to protect themselves. Each episode has a similar narrative where the alien children are fighting a new devil who is out to get them, fighting a new monster who is trying to destroy them and end their life. I was glued to the series, each episode felt new and refreshing. It was a whole imaginary world of aliens and monsters and devils.

By the second season, I began thinking about this whole imaginary world of destruction and death. I found it interesting that it was an animated series meant to be seen by children. It got me thinking about how we as children often played games with imaginary roles and how often as children, we have a whole world of imagination inside us – our thinking is complex and infinitely shaped by others around us. As children, the world outside gets translated in colourful ways.

It is our omnipotent mother who will always help us and give us nourishment, who we are so dependent on, who eventually has to leave us. And so we hate our mother who is so separate from us, whose absence we cannot survive, whose absence we cannot feel in our minds, whose absence we cannot transcribe.

We hate our mothers and we feel a desperate urge to kill her. And in this absence, all the world tumbles alive. We hate our mothers and we feel our mother is this witch who is out to kill us. It is quite black and white as a child. Moments are split, each one with an imaginary tale inside (Klein, 1946).

I started to notice how a lot of shows meant for kids have similar imaginary tales, fiction, made-up worlds with devils and demons. Often kid’s shows have an underlying theme of a need for protection, a need to aggress, to fight, to destroy and to devastate. In such subtle ways, there is a metaphor of death foregrounding and layering the theme. It’s a recurring theme of death and destruction. And I found it thought-provoking as it seemed this underlying theme is something that defined our lives as children and maybe continues to define our lives as adults.

It is these parts inside us that get activated when in threat, it is these parts that get activated when we are striving to make something, to make something come alive, it is these imaginary and fantasy-driven parts through which we continue to live (Isaacs, 1948). Death and destruction are the nature of life.

My therapist once, after I had lost a friend to a hit-and-run accident, had told me that plants die but new plants with new flowers are also born. I was startled and shocked with this death – it was numbing – to think that you can die while crossing a road – so pointless this life. We can die – any minute, any day – and that is a fact of life. All good things come to an end and all of us will one day die. It is facts of life that are so easy to deny (Money-Kyrle, 2014). And so, when good things end, it breaks us.

When we are reminded of death, it haunts us. And the feelings that haunt us, are maybe also our own fantasies that we have lived through, our own fantasies that we are living through, our own anxieties that we have survived, that we survive.

I think in this dreaded moment, where wildfires are spreading through a continent, and throughout the world, a pandemic spreads also like fire, we are utterly reminded of our own nature as human – that we die, that we struggle through death, that it is in dying that we also each moment come alive.

It is also acutely interesting that while in the west people are hoarding on groceries and toilet paper, in India people are talking about cow urine, reiki and meditation as curative and preventive techniques. Culturally rooted madness is surfacing even more now, perhaps also because it is mad that a virus is taking over the earth.

And so, secretly while also not so secretly, we chant to this lord of destruction, who nourishes, who creates, who creates for us a life, to be liberated from death. This omnipotent, all powerful over-arching figure, in whose eyes my life lies, who also destroys everything within and with-out – this person to whom I owe my life – I chant for life. And maybe, this chant, that we are all chanting together for defeating death, takes us back to our own primitive life that we survived with our mothers,

“We worship you, who is beautiful and who nourishes all, Like the fruit falls off from the burden of the stem, may we be liberated from death, from mortality”

Perhaps, these feelings of panic, fear and angst are also now birthing from our own culturally rooted and very early memories of times we have all survived.


References

Isaacs, S. (1948). The Nature and Function of Phantasy. Int. J. Psychoanalysis, 29, 73-972)

Klein, M. (1946). Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms. Int. J. Psychoanalysis, 27, 99-110.3)

Money-Kyrle, R. (2014). Aim of Psychoanalysis. Man’s Picture of His World: A Psychoanalytic Study, pp. 229-236, London: Karnac Books