Coffin Dance Meme: Experiencing the Reality of Death (Meme Analysis)
Now unless you have been living under a rock, chances are you have seen this meme everywhere. It involves someone in the midst of being either seriously hurt or a near death experience, before it cuts to Ghanian pallbearers carrying a coffin, all the while dancing. The implication that the person/s in the viral video has died adds to and amplifies the humor. Now such a meme has produced many laughs, however, not alot of people wonder why such a meme is so viral particularly during this time when COVID-19 is killing people in the thousands.
The truth is, this meme, and everyone’s reaction to it, is an introspective insight into man’s relationship with death. It shows how people either embrace their mortality and choose to make light of it through memes, or deny it altogether. In truth, most people choose to deny the reality of our mortality, to make it trivial to them. Hence, the popularity of this meme.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
-Genesis 3:19
How we negatively experience Death
In time past, it was easier to accept the reality of death, as it was more in the visual forefront. In the past, people saw death all the time. Now, with higher life expectancy, less wars being seen or heard directly, less diseases at the forefront of our minds, less death experienced and seen by our eyes, we choose to tell ourselves that death is a lifetime away, and not something to worry about. Some even forget the fact that the time will come when a man will die.
This denial or ignorance of death is manifested in people’s positive reaction to this meme. Our denial of our mortality has led us to take on a futile perspective of life. To live only in the moment and not ponder on the future. The engage in meaningless and frivolous pursuits in the hope of selfish euphoria, in the hopes of dulling our fear of the ultimate unknown: death.
Death is seen as the ultimate enemy. That is why in different cultures the god of Death, whether it is Hades, Anubis, Pluto, or Hel, is viewed as the enemy. Who can blame them? According to the Bible, death is something our Lord Jesus Christ must save mankind from, which is why he himself must face death himself in order to save his disciples from a worse kind of death: The Second Death in the lake of fire.
Then Death and Hades were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the Second Death.
-Revelation 20:14
So our fear of death is firmly embedded into our collective psyche, and as a result people have reacted differently to it. Our negative response to our mortality is manifested in different ways, and not just in a viral meme. For example, when people experience a near-death experience, they are never the same again. So man is so fearful of death that they would do anything to avoid it, and this is manifested in different ways.
The Nihilistic Attitude
One way people have reacted to death is to accept the grim reality and engage in a nihilistic and selfish lifestyle, full of drugs, alcohol, smoking, meaningless sex and petty crime. However, some even take a step further and become rapists, abusers, serial killers, terrorists, war lords and mass murderers, giving people a life that is, as many people will say, worse than death.
These people believe: “if we are all going to die, then what meaning does life have”. As a result, these people engage in self-destruction behaviour, pursuing selfish and meaningless pleasures, even imposing indirectly their cynical view of life on others through violence and extreme acts of hatred. Some even refuse to wait for the inevitable and take matters into their own hands by committing suicide and finally experiencing death not as something they fear, but as something they have control over (or so they tell themselves).
In this way, they try to become masters of death. Perhaps in convincing themselves that because they accept the grim reality of death and the futility of life, they now have power over death. So they impose death on others to convince the world of the “truth’’ they have discovered about life and death.
However, in this way, they insult God, the ultimate master of life and death, by playing God and trying to obtain dominion over something they cannot control or even fathom. They lie to the world, and in the end, they lie to themselves.
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless”. What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the Earth remains forever.
-Ecclesiastes 1:1–11
Although usually, some take a less extreme, but more socially acceptable to this nihilistic viewpoint. Some see life as their one chance to stamp their legacy on the world, to make a name for themselves that will last forever. So what do they do? They work, day in and day out, achieving more and more in their careers and field, or achieving more knowledge, or achieving peak physical capability. They accomplish as much as they can in their short amount of time on Earth, knowing that death is imminent, while at the same time neglecting relationships and people.
Driven by their grandiosity and selfishness, they tell themselves: “people are useless. They all die eventually. The only thing that lives on is what you achieve”. To them, people are either just tools to be used for their own means, or just a distraction to them from building their legend.
However, it is a facade, a mask people wear. Most likely these people will engage in these activities that shows the world they have no fear of death, that they have accepted the reality, but when death is staring at them in the face, they will be like scared little children, guilty and regretful at how they have squandered their existence.
The Self-Deception Attitude
One other way people react to death is by convincing itself that it is not true. That perhaps, in this fleeting moment, they live forever. They try to forget and ignore the impending truth about their mortality, and live like they will live forever. To them, death is nothing more than a distant dream. Something to only worry about when it comes true.
Such people will drown their denial in melancholy and depression, drinking, partying, degrading themselves, all in the hopes of distracting them from the truth. Others just go through life with no purpose and no real direction, moving forward with no urgency and never reaching their full potential. They think: “I have all the time in the world to finish this project or to build this relationship”. They never consider the possibility that they can lose everything anytime through death.
Such an attitude of death denial has seeped into our culture in the form of people looking to prolong their lives or even to live forever. How else to explain the supposed existence of the Elixir of Life? Such a denial of death, a wilful ignorance of death lead people to self-deception and monotony in life. They go through life just living from day to day, never looking to the future, never feeling pressure to achieve anything, and thus never reaching their full potential.
Even worse, some people can act so happy with their life that they seem inauthentic and disingenuous. They show only their good side and never feel any other emotion, or at least they do not display it. They only see the good, nurturing side of life, and not the bad, chaotic evil cousin. Why? Because they go through life convincing themselves that they have years left in their lives. They act like they will live forever.
However, this is the ultimate form of self-deception. Especially when one tries to run from the ultimate and inescapable truth about life and our existence: our death. The truth for these people is too painful to handle, too sad and scary to think about. So they run. Their knowledge, feelings, and character remain shallow, and they live a life pretending they will live forever until the truth hits them in the end.
Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is you life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
-James 4:14
How should we experience Death?
There are positive ways to see and experience death. Even if our loved ones, whether it’s our parents, siblings, friends, lovers, colleagues, acquaintances, or even famous people we admire, there is a way to see death in a positive light. Even if it is the unknown world no-one has come back from, save a select few from Biblical times, our attitude to our mortality and our transient time on Earth can create alot of positive results.
The Embracing, Impacting Attitude
How people with this attitude view death is this: our road to freedom from a chaotic world, our paving of the way for the next generation, our conclusion of all we have achieved in life. So many people have accepted death, and even embraced it, and as a result, wish to do as much as they can before their soul departs the Earth. They build as many meaningful relationships as they can, excel in their field as much as they can, and make as much of a positive impact to their social environment as much as they can, all the while staring at death in the face without flinching.
Such people are prone to feeling positive stress and urgency, which gives their productivity more potency and momentum, allowing themselves to fully immerse themselves in their work. If we are such people, we can even experience “mini-deaths”, which is where we are thrust into a situation where our mind is switched on and the senses are heightened. This occurs when we are under positive stress, or we are excited at a possibility. In these times, our creative energies are activated at its highest potency, and we produce our best work.
If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.
-Ecclesiastes 11:4
We can create this feeling of urgency by recreating the feeling of an impending death. This is done by deadlines or the negative consequences if we do not succeed. This feeling or situation of pressure, stress, urgency, desperation, is like death is at your doorstep in a strange way. Why? Because death is the ultimate deadline.
This psychological phenomenon is what Sun Tzu calls “Death Ground”. In military terms, it is when an army is trapped by a natural landscape, such as a river or a mountain, and the enemy is closing in on them. There is no escape, and the only way out of this situation is to fight with everything you have through the enemy.
In life, this can be applied several ways. One is by trying new things that scare you or before you are ready. Another one is undertaking a project, and giving yourself no way out psychologically. You must either succeed or fail, or in other words, live or die. Death Ground can be recreated anywhere in any situation, so man can fully reach his ultimate potential.
When we fully embrace not only our own mortality, but also the mortality of others, we also become more empathetic and understanding. Mortality is the greatest equaliser, and all men are equal in death. We realise that we are not as significant as we thought, but at the same time we realise we are more significant than what we give ourselves credit for. We realise that life is both short, but at the same time we realise that life is such a long time.
Embracing death gives us perspective. Both confidence and humility. Knowing our mortality allows us to enjoy the sublime, the awe-inspiring, the wondrous. We are in awe and wonder when we are in a new place, experience new things, see and feel things we have never seen or before. We accept death, and that opens our eyes to the sublime, the beautiful, the great, because we know there are things in the universe much greater than we are, that will still be here after we return to the dust. So we appreciate them more.
With this mindset, we can have the most positive effect on people, on the world, on ourselves. We see the truth of life and death, and when we see a meme of African pallbearers, we can laugh too, just like everyone else who tries to run away from reality, because we have been enlightened.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
-Ecclesiastes 9:10
The Preparing for Eternity Attitude
This attitude is most common within the major religions of the world. The most common belief is the belief among the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), in that God has prepared a better place for mankind after death, with the one condition being that mankind serves him and fulfils his purpose to him. So such people have accepted and look to the time of their deaths with understanding and no fear, because they know there is something beyond death.
Such people know that God lives beyond life and death, and he alone has the power to reward his chosen people with life after death, if his people obey his commands. So what does people do? They do as much good to their fellow men, they share their accomplishments with the world and for the service of mankind, and they embrace fully their earthly mortality knowing that if they do God’s divine will, they will be rewarded with life everlasting after death.
Those that fear death try to avoid pain and suffering, not knowing that the avoidance of these things are rooted in our fear of death. As a result, we surrender to our life trials and lose hope. We do not try to complete, or even try to begin any projects that we have always wanted to do because of our fear of the pain of failure. We fear fighting against evil because we fear man’s capacity for evil. We avoid taking risks, and we avoid becoming vulnerable and opening our hearts to people, because we fear them leaving us, or we fear ourselves and our own capacity to hurt other people. We fear doing good because we fear that good will not be the reward we will reap.
Don’t waste time arguing over foolish ideas and silly myths and legends. Spend your time and energy in the exercise of keeping spiritually fit. Bodily exercise is all right, but spiritual exercise is much more important and is a tonic for all you do. So exercise yourself spiritually, and practice being a better Christian because that will help you not only now in this life, but in the next life too.
-1 Timothy 4:7–8
When one is able to accept death with open eyes, they can endure and even embrace all pain and adversity. They know such things are temporary, and these things will all die, just like we will. They accept that failure is a possibility, if not an inevitability. They accept that people will come and go, and that pain is a teacher and a precursor to greater pleasures. They take more risks, try more things, endure more pain, because they know the reward is much greater.
This is especially true for those who believe in God and obey his will. They can suffer anything in this life, endure difficult tests and trial life throws at them, because they know that after they endure the ultimate suffering of death, they will inherit God’s promises. This motivates them to be better than what they are now, to reach for the greater good, to work hard with their hands in order to provide for their loved ones, and to tell people of what God’s reward is for mankind if they just do what he says. They can see beyond their own death, and this knowledge gives them purpose and direction.
As such, they can find humour in a coffin dance meme, because they know that the end is really just the beginning. That death is just a bridge man must cross to another life. As such, they prepare, for both the life and the death that will come, and they face death with an open mind and heart, ready to meet their maker at the end of their lives after death, when the universe comes to its end.
Do not be lazy but work hard, serving the Lord with all your heart.
-Romans 12:11
The Coffin Dance Meme is a representation of just how much mankind denies the reality of death. So much that death has become very detached, statistical, numerical, even comical and cartoonish in movies and pop culture. However, if we fully embrace the reality of death, understanding that it is an inescapable truth, and using its impending arrival as a way to propel ourselves forward, we can reach our potential. To give our lives and our time on Earth before our death meaning, purpose, and direction. So while we are young enough to fulfil our goals in life, to experience life to the fullest, to prepare as much as we can for the end, what should we do? What should all men and women do, not just the young, but the old? King Solomon gives some good advice on this question. He says:
You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgement.
-Ecclesiastes 11:9
Following this principle, we can understand and deepen our understanding out our own death. We can make something of the life God has given us. We understand that the Coffin Dance Meme is just a representation of how mankind experiences the reality of death.
