What Does it Mean to be a Self-Conscious Animal?

By: Ernest Becker

Art: Zaam Arif

The irony of man’s condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.

— Ernest Becker

What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal?

The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms.

This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression—and with all this yet to die.