Chapter 11 May: Existential Psychology 331to grasp what it means to exist, one needs to grasp the fact that he might not
exist, that he treads at every moment on the sharp edge of possible annihilation
and can never escape the fact that death will arrive at some unknown moment
in the future. (pp. 47– 48)
Death is not the only avenue of nonbeing, but it is the most obvious one.
Life becomes more vital, more meaningful when we confront the possibility of our
death. Nearly 40 years before his own death, May (1958a) spoke of death as “the
one fact of my life which is not relative but absolute, and my awareness of this
gives my existence and what I do each hour an absolute quality” (p. 49).
When we do not courageously confront our nonbeing by contemplating
death, we nevertheless will experience nonbeing in other forms, including addiction
to alcohol or other drugs, promiscuous sexual activity, and other compulsive behav-
iors. Our nonbeing can also be expressed as blind conformity to society’s expecta-
tions or as generalized hostility that pervades our relations to others.
EigenweltUmwelt MitweltFIGURE 11.1 Healthy People Live Simultaneously in Umwelt, Mitwelt, and
Eigenwelt.