Did you hear about it from the NYT?

When anticipating writing what theory I would write, the terror management theory did not spring to mind, obviously. The fear of death is something that resides in the back of our minds, so through an adoption of worldviews and bolstering of self-esteem we, as humans are able to believe we have value. Now on Wednesday morning, an email came through stating that a torpedo had hit a vessel and that insurance would have to cover such. The man sitting next to me was working on that exact vessel and what was so odd was how something so far away seemed so close by merely because of the proximity of my colleague to the situation. The sea of Oman suddenly felt like it was next door and although there were no casualties and those on board were rescued by Iranian soldiers it was still so odd that stories we read in the news truly happen.

Which although sounds incredibly ignorant are meant to be interpreted by the next day occurrence – for in the NYT there was an article about this exact situation and when reading it I felt so separated from it. This is because there is an element of security and safety when you are reading about tragedies that have happened, as you are normally reading them from either a place far away or rather from the comfort of your own home. This biological predisposition in turn made me attempt to think about the values or areas of importance I have in my life – because I knew about this theory knowing that I was attempting to fix my behavior or thoughts was an interesting perspective.

This reminder of my own death I do not believe would have been obtained if I were to merely have read the article in the NYT. Getting an office email about a torpedo striking a ship was something I did not anticipate to come up during my internship. What was surprising was the direct discourse between the broker and those in the accident for there were no middlemen nor was there conversing upon email. There was an element of reality to it which in turn bolstered the inevitability of death within my mind. I also never thought that a situation which I had been apart of would ever be written in an article nonetheless one within the pages of the NYT.