The Two Polesof Life's Magnet: Sexand Death

Presented
to TheDiet,Jawary9,2001
By DonaldW. Miller, Jr.

TheDiet was establishedin 1940,the year I wasborn, and its complementof ttrirtyfive membershavepresented460 papersto eachotherover the last sixty years. Thesepapers
havecovereda wide variety of subjects,but the subjectsof sexand deathare mostly
unchanedtenitory at this symposium.Dale Turnerpresenteda paperin 1972titled
"Religion,Morality, EthicsandSex,"andonein 1981titled "DeathandDying-And Then
What." PepperSchwartzpresentedthreepapersrelatedto the subjectof sex,the most recent
one,titled "What Bill andHillary HaveTaughtUs About Love, SexandMarriage,"in 1999;
and CharlesNolan presenteda paperrelatedto the subjectof deathtitled "Human Longevity:
LessonsFromthe Vilcabambans,"in 1985. TonightI will look at both sexanddeath,
describetheir biologicalrelationshipandconsiderreligiousandphilosophicalaspectsof
thesetwo polesof life
This is my first paperbeforeTheDiet. But this occasionis saddenedfor me because
two peoplewho I wascloseto andwho helpedsponsorme for membershipin the Diet,
GeorgeTaylor andJim McDonald,havedied. George,asyou know, died last year,andJim,
two yearsago. GeorgeTaylor presentedhis first paperto TheDiet in 1946,and over the next
46 yearshe presented18papersto this group,the most of any member. He would have
enjoyedhearingtonight'spaper. At a cocktail party, looking dapperat the ageof 93 and
accompaniedby his fourth wife, he was asked,"When doesa person'ssexualdesirefinally
fadeaway?" He replied, "About six hoursafter death." I havewritten a book titled Heart in
Handttnt addresses
tonight's subjects.Georgereadboth an unediteddraft of the manuscript
andthe final publishedversionwith greatinterest. Jim McDonald offeredto edit the
manuscriptand,neverlacking in aplomb,he finishedthe last chapter,titled "Confronting

Sexand Death

Death,"while havingto confronthis own impendingdeathfrom inoperablelung cancer.I

deeplyregretthat they areboth goneandcannotbe here.
My bookHeart in Hand addresses
the big questionsof life, questionslike: Why are
with sex? Is therea God? And why do we haveto die? In additionto
we sopreoccupied
tonight'ssubjects,it exploresthe motiveof self-interest(thechapteron this subjectis titled
the
"GettingWhatOneWants");thephilosophicalandmedicalsignificanceof compassion;
importanceof the arts,principallymusic;andreligion. In this enquiryI usetwo
unconventional
sources-thephilosopherArthur Schopenhauer
andWoodyAllen.
Schopenhauer,
it turnsout, hasmanyinterestingthingsto sayaboutsex,self-interest,
music,
andreligion. And WoodyAllen, asthoseof you who like him know, focuses,with telling
effect,on questionsrelatingto sex,love,death,andGod in his films, plays,andshortstories.
In additionto thesesources,our species'biologicalandculturalhistoryinformsmy viewson
thesesubjects.
AlthoughHeart in Handwaswrittenfor peoplewho think aboutlife's big questions
I wasuncertainhow theologiansmight view
andsharean interestin the artsandthe sciences,
it. This concemwaslessened
whenDaleTurner,a theologianandthe Diet's only previous
speakerto haveaddressed
both oftonight's subjects,wrotethat he hadenjoyedreadingthe
quitecarefullywhenhe wasat Yale
book. He saidthat he hadstudiedSchopenhauer
Divinity School,liked the factthat I quotedWoodyAllen; andhe wrote,"Your chapterson
compassion
andreligioncouldbe taughtin any seminary."Buoyedby this endorsement,I
haveelectedto follow in his footstepsandpresentthis paperon sexanddeathto the Diet.
I beganmy investigationof thesesubjectsin a seriousway in 1984when,with my
secondmarriagefailing, I hada brushwith death.A mole on my shoulderprovedto be a
malignantmelanoma.I was44 yearsold at the time andflying high professionally,and
suddenlyI wasforcedto confront,not only anotherfailedmarriage,but alsothe prospectof
an earlydeath.
Uponcompletionof my heartsurgerytrainingin New York, I movedto Seattlein
t974. Oncehere,I becameengrossed
in RichardWagner'sRing of theNibelungthat Seattle
Operabegandoingeachsummerin 1975. Seekingto morefully understand
this four-opera
cycle I beganto study Schopenhauer
after finding out that this philosopherhadhad a
profoundimpacton Wagner'sart. In spiteof a collegedegreewith a major in philosophy,I

Sexond Death
did not know much aboutSchopenhauer,
only that in the line of 19frcenturyGerman
philosophershe followed Kant andprecededNietzsche. But after reading,and rereading,his
principal work, The Worldas Will and Representation,Ibeganto seewhy Tolstoy
consideredSchopenhauer
to be "the most brilliant man who ever lived" and why the
philosopherKarl Popperoncesaidthat therearemoregood ideasin Schopenhauer
than in
any otherphilosopherexceptPlato. In the mid 1980sI had the opportunityto meetthe
British philosopherBryan Magee,authorof ThePhilosopltyof Schopenhauer,whenhe came
to Seattleto give lectureson the Ring. Spendingtime togetherin both Seattleand London,
andthroughan ongoingcorrespondence,
Bryan hashelpedme to betterunderstandthis
philosopher.
At aboutthe sametime I alsohad a life-changingexperiencein my work asa heart
surgeon. What doctorsdo canhavea profoundeffect on their patients' lives, but it alsocan
work the otherway. Patientscanhavea profoundeffect on their doctors' lives. I had sucha
patientnamedGeorgeCrosby. He lived with his wife on the Olympic Peninsulaand
maintaineda small farm there. I did one of otr standardheartoperationson him, an aortic
valve replacementand a singlecoronarybypassgraft. He camethroughthe surgeryfine and
wasdischargedhomewith his wife eight dayslater. Nothing unusual,exceptfor the fact that
he was l0l yearsold. His wife was93 yearsold andtheyhadbeenmarriedfor 75 years.
The thing that struckme aboutthis amazinglyresilientman was that he had an auraabout
him that radiatedhealthandenergy-and compassion.In appreciationfor the carehe
received,his wife sentme this photograph,takensix monthsafter his heartsurgery,which I
will passaround. Seeingit, oneperson,visibly stunned,said,"Thosehandsarehandsof the
earth. And the way he is holding them [the vines]. It is a celebrationof life." I write in my
book, "The loving carewith which he handlesthosevines seemsto inject a kind of kinetic
energyinto the body of this nearly l02year old man." My experiencewith this patient
spurredme on to studycarefully the subjectof deathand,in particular,to try and find out the
reasonswhy somepeopledie young andothers,like GeorgeCrosbyand my cousinSally,
who madeit to the ageof 103,live a long life.

Sexand Death

Looking at deathfrst, we ask,*Why do we haveto die?" But it turns out that the
answerto this questionlies at the otherpole of lifeosmagnet,in the natureof sex. William
Clark puts it well in his book, Sexand the Origin of Death. All organismsthat havesex,he
writes, are"condemnedto die asa condition of birth."
Life hasexistedon this planetfor aboutfotr billion years. For the first two billion
yearsonly microscopicsinglecell organismsknown asbacteriainhabitedthe planet. Two

Sexand Death

billion yearsago,spinningfaster,the planethada 2O-hourday, no vegetation,and no other

living things exceptbacteria. The planet'safinospherewould not havesustainedany oxygenbreathinganimal life in any eventbecausethe atmosphere'soxygencontentwasonly I per
cent insteadof its current2l per cent. More importantly,for our purposeshere,the
biological constructof aging anddeathdid not yet exist. This is becausesinglecell bacteria
don't usesexto reproducethemselves.They reproduceby cloning, and given the right
conditionsbacteriawill keepmaking identicalcopiesof themselvesforever. Whenthe
original bacteriumis long gone,an identicalcopy will still be around. Thenduring the next
two billion yearsbacteriaevolvedinto a vastarrayof life forms. Almost all plantsand
animalsthat exist on the planetreproduceby having sex. And, onceaccomplished,with the
propagationof one's speciesthus assured,theseliving things, in contrastto bacteria,are
consignedto senescence
anddeath.
Sexat the cellular level involvesthe mixing of geneticmaterialfrom morethan one
source. Bacteriado engagein onekind of cellular sex:they sharegeneticmaterialwith each
other. For example,bacteriaworldwide sharegeneticallyencodedinformation that enables
them to becomeresistantto a drug like penicillin. But only plantsand animalsemploy sexat
the cellular level to produceoffspring. As a result of the physicalact of sex,our parents,
throughsexat the cellular level, intermixedtheir respectivegenesto produceus. Obtaining
half of otr geneticmakeupfrom our motherandhalf from our father,we eachstartedlife as
a microscopicone-cellembryo,madegeneticallywhole whenan ovum that our mother
ovulatedinto her uterusbecamesexuallyfertilized by one of our father's spenn. Biologists
term ova and spermgerm cells. They aredifferent from the rest of the cells in our body,
knownassornaticcel/s,becausegenncellsonly containhalf a copy of one'sgenes.Put a
spennand ovum togetherandyou createa one-cellembryowith a full complementof genes.
It's analogousto a fighter planecarryinga payloadof critically importantcomputerparts
landing in a flight hangeron a largespacestation,becausean ovum is 85,000times larger
than a singlesperm.
A newly formedone-cellhumanembryoundergoes38 cell divisions,the sameway
bacteriaclonethemselves,to form a new humanbeing composedof 100trillion cells. Each
oneof thesecellscontainsa full complementof that individual'sgenes.As embryoniccells
divide, they take on differing characteristicsto makeup the variousorgansin the body such
asthe heart,brain, and kidneys. Programmed,asthey are,however,after 50 cell divisions-

Sexand Death

that's the upperlimit-the somaticcells that makeup our body stop functioning and die.
Somaticcell deathis a basicingredientin the recipefor life that is encodedin our genes.
Thereis a raredisease,calledthe Hutchinson-Gilfordprogeriasyndrome,wherethe
geneticallycontrolledhumanagingprocessis greatlyspeeded
up. It is not a prettysight.
Clark describesit this way:
Children [with progeriasyndrome]undergothe entirehumanagingprocess,through death,in about
fifteenyears. The first changesappearin the affectedchildren'sskin,which in the fnst yearor two of
life becomeswrinkled,thin, andparchment-like,
almosttranslucent.Their facesbeginto look old,
with delicateblueveinscriss-crossing
their foreheads.A few yearslater,their hair beginsto fall out;
what is left soonturns gray... They rarely enterpuberty,seemingto progressdirectly into old age.
Frail andshriveled,theyusuallydie ofcardiovasculardiseaseor strokebeforethe endoftheir second
decadeof life.

Germcellsarenestledin our bodiesin the ovariesandtesticlesrespectively.When

we reachpubertywe comeunderthe spell of a strongurgethat drives us to havesexso that
appositegermcellscancometogetherandproducenewmembersof the species. As we
know from personalexperience,
this urgecanbe very powerful. In modernparlanceone
couldsay,"Germcellsrule!"
In animalsthat makeup the five classesof vertebrates,fish and amphibiansprocreate
by releasingeggsthat arefertilizedexternally.Reptiles,birds,andmammals,like us,
produceoffspring by engagingin sexualintercourse.In contrastto humans,however,
reptiles,birds, andothermammalsonly havesexwhenthe femaleovulatesand goesinto
heat. The restof thetime othercopulatingvertebrates,
includingour closestcousinsthe
chimpanzee
andgorill4 go on abouttheir businessanddon't think aboutsex. Our speciesis
uniquein this regard. We think aboutsexall the time. In his analysisof sexualdesire
Schopenhauer
writes:
makeup for the deprivationof its
[Sexualdesire]is so very muchthe chiefthing,thatno pleasures
satisfaction....
It is reallythe invisiblecentralpoint of all actionandconduct,andpeepsup everywhere,
in spiteof all the veils thrownover it. It is the inexhaustible
sourceof wit, the key to all hintsand
allusion,andthe meaningofall secretsignsandsuggestions,
proposals,andall stolen
all unexpressed
glances;it is the daily thoughtanddesireof the youngandoftenof the old aswell, the hourly thought

Sexand Death
of the unchaste,andthe constrntly recurringreverieof the chasteevenagainsttheir will, the everready
materialfor ajoke, only becausethe profoundestseriousness
lies at its root.

points out, the primary aim of sexualintercourseis to produce

As Schopenhauer
offspring. He writes:
The ultimate aim of all love affairs is actuallymore importantthan all other aims in man's life; and
thereforeit is quite worthy of the profound seriousness
with which everyonepu$ues it. What is
decidedis nothing lessthan the compositionof the nactgeneration.

Schopenhauer
saysthat the "kernel of an individual's true natue," or "true being-initself," ashe puts it, is transmittedin one's childrenand,throughthem,to subsequent
generations.We now know that this "kernel of an individual's true nature" is housedin the
DNA moleculesttrat makeup our genes;and our genesarehousedin the nucleusof our cells,
100,000of themin eachoneof our 100trillion cells. Schopenhauer's
geneticinsightsin the
early 1800spredatedDarwin'stheoryof evolution;Mendel'slawsof heredity,which laid the
foundationfor the modemscienceof geneticsimd, by well morethan a century,Watsonand
Crick's discoveryof the molecularstructureof DNA in 1953.
Sexin humanbeingshastrvo other importantaspects. In the physicalact of sex,in
our species,both men andwomenareableto experiencean orgasm. As a result,we will
engagein sexsolely for the sensualpleasurethat it cangive. Another importantaspectof sex
in humanbeingsis that it helpsus to form long-term,loving and caring relationships,both
heterosexualandhomosexual.In contrastto othercopulatingvertebrates,in humanssexual
behavioris inextricablyentruinedwith feelingsof love. Whenthe threeprostitutesinvite
Tom to havesexwith them in Woody Allen's movie ThePurple Roseof Cairo, he turns
themdown,saying,"No, I'm in love with someoneelse,"whereupononeof theprostifutes
replies,"We're not talking aboutinlove, we're talking aboutmakinglove." Human
sexualityis complexandhasmanyramifications,including the fact that men and womencan
experiencesexualpleasureand form loving relationshipswith a partnerof the samegender,
or alone,throughmasturbation.As Alvy saysin Allen's AnnieHall,"Don't knock
masturbation,
it's sexwith somebodyI love."
Long beforeFreudstudiedthis subject,Schopenhauer
carriedout a carefulanalysisof
sex. He wasthe first Westemphilosopherto do so, andhe discernedthatprocreation is the

Sexand Death
driving force behindour sexualdesires,not the orgasmicpleasuresor loving relationships
that humanbeingscanderive from this activity. He points out that our two most basic
animal instinctsarethe will to reproduceandthe will to live, andof the two the will to
reproduceis the most important. The will to live in a personis extinguishedonceand for all
whenthat persondies. By producinga child, however,half of eachparent'sgenesremain
alive,andthe will to reproducethemlives on in one'sprogeny! The abidingjoy with which
an elderly persongreetsthe birth of a grandchildreflectsthe importanceof this child asthe
carrierof that person'sgenesinto the future.
Schopenhauer
discernedthat our sexualurgeshavephilosophicalsignificance,and
his views on this mattermakeup the basicthemethat ties the threadsof my brr,okHeart in
Hondtogether.Put in a nutshellit is this: therearefour waysthat a personcanintuitively
fathomthe inner natureof things,four waysto perceiveintuitively, the only way onecan,the
underlyingreality of the world. They arethroughhaving sex,listening to music, feeling
compassion,andhaving a mystical experience.
For some,sexalsohasa religiousdimension. The Beatwriter JackKerouacessays
this aspectof sexin his work, most notably in his novel On the Road. He describesthe Beats
searchto find /2, throughorgasms,digging the riffs of a bop saxophonist,and drug-induced
mysticalstatesof consciousness.
For them/f, with a capital"I" anda capitalo'T,"denotes
the God of Ultimate Reality. This brings up a centralquestionin the humansearchfor God.
Is God a supematuralBeing that we canrelateto on a personallevel, a Yahwel5an Allatr, or
a Mother Goddess.Or is "God" (in quotes)a pantheisticnon-personaldeity-an "Elemental
Sourceof Energy,"an "All Encompassing
Oneness,"or somekind of "Uniffing Cosmic
Force"? For the proponentsof the New Thoughtmovementin the l9b centuryandthe Beat
Generationandthe New Age movementin the 20fi century,"God" is Ultimate Reality, a
reality that is synonymousi
with Kant's noumenon.In Woody Allen's one-actplay God,
whenDoris is told that thereis no God shesavs:
But withoutGo4 the universeis meaningless.Life is meaningless.We're meaningless.I havea
suddenand overpoweringurge to get laid.

Sexand Death

From both Schopenhauer

andAllen's perspective,Doris' sexualimpulsesreassureher that
God doesexist. Shecanintuitively perceivefrom the experienceof having sexthat thereis a
God,perhapsnot an Allatr or a Yahweh,but a God of UniversalOnenessnonetheless.
Given the fact that we areprogrammedto die, "and then what?' as Dale Turnerputs
it. Do we havenothing moreto look forward to than the "nothingnessof death,"to use
Tolstoy'sstarkdescriptionof the matter?SaulBellow, in his novelHumbolt'sGil, writes:
Suppose,then, that after the greatest,most passionatevividnessandtenderglory, oblivion is all we
haveto expect,the big blank of death. What optionspresentthemselves?One option is to train
yourself graduallyinto oblivion so that no greatchangehastakenplacewhen you havedied.

This is the choicethat JackKerouacmade,like many otherpeoplehavedone. He

drankhimselfto death. Kerouacdied at the ageof 47. Regardingdeath,he wrote:
A lifelong struggleto avoid disaster. Idiot PTA's andguruscall it Cre-a-tive? Politics, gambling,hard
work, drinking, patriotism,protesl pooh-poohings,all therapeuticshiffs againstthe black void.

William Jamescalleddeath"the worm at the core"of man'spretensions

to happiness.
But Schopenhauer
says,ratherthan worry aboutwhat happensto us when we die we should
askourselvesthis question: "Wherewas I beforeI wasborn?" If our soul, or spirit, did not
exist beforeou physicalbirth, what claim do we haveto sucha thing after our physical
death? Hindusand Buddhistswould saythat our individual soul didpreviously exist, in
otherhumansor animals. And whenwe die our soulswill be rebornin new organisms.
Indeed,if you arenot carefulhow you conductyourself in this life, your karmamay consign
you in the next oneto be somethingyou wouldjust .rssoonnot be, like a mole rat. You
couldsaythat'stwo-wayevolution,Buddhiststyle.
Hindusand Buddhistsbelievethat the goal of one's existenceis to escapethe almost
endlesscycle of deathsandrebirthsby ultimately merging,andtherebyerasing,one's soul,
with its willful personhood,back into the One-.into a UniversalCompassionate
Oneness,
which the Buddhiststerm Nirvana.
This fate is not too appealingto most peoplein our Westernculture. Most peoplein
our culturewould prefera more concrete,individualistic form of immortality. Onekind we
cantry to achieveis "biologic immortality." Our geneslive on in otr children. But, halved

Sexand Death

l0

asthey arein eachsucceedinggeneration,they get quickly diluted, suchthat my great-great

grandchildren,four generationslater,will only carry ln6doof my genes. The Bible puts it
well. In ExodusGod tells Mosesthat the punishmentof peoplewho hatehim will be also
inflicted upontheir children out to the fourth generation,to ensurethat any semblanceof that
person-any shredof one's biologic immortality-in future generationsis eradicated.
Anotherkind of immortallty that humanbeingscanobtain,onethat can last at leastas
long asour speciescontinuesto exist on the planet,is "artistic immortality." The works of a
Van Gogh,Shakespeare,
Tolstoy, Beethovenand Wagnerwill probablylive on trntil our
speciesbecomesextinct-and possiblyafter that, with their art appreciatedby intelligent life
forms on otherplanets. But as Woody Allen says,"I don't want to gain immortality in my
work,I wantto gainit by not dying."
A third form of immortality, the onemost desiredby peoplein our Westemculture,is
to havelife after death. But this must necessarilyoccurwithout our earthly bodies. Doctors
and soldiersknow what happensto them whenwe die. If not soonembalmedor burnedfirst,
our ancientbacterialancestorsfeaston a deadbody, quickly making it becomebloated,
discolored,andfoul smelling. Canoneossoulor spirit, without one'sbody,have"life" after
death,with JesusChristif you area Christian,or with Allah, asMuslimsbelieve?Thereis
no way to know. To believethis requiresa leapof faith.
Deathis like a black hole. We cancircle aroundit andmakevariousobservations
about death,but we cannotknow what lies on the other side. (Neardeathexperiencesdon't
count,asI arguein my book.) Like with an actualcosmicblack hole, onceyou crossits
eventhorizonthereis no comingback.
Oneway to copewith the potentialoblivion of death,asBruno Walter puts it in his
biographyof GustavMahler, is to cultivate a "vivid concernaboutintellectualquestions,"as
we do hereat the Diet, andto have"an unquenchable
thirst for knowledgeand
comprehension."If you wish to do this to the fullest, asdid our late memberGeorgeTaylor,
then you needto live a long life in good estate.And this brings me backto my patient,
GeorgeCrosby. To stayhealthyand live a long life, like him we needto practice
compassion.It turns out that repressedangeris a major causieof disease,including cancer
and coronaryarterydisease.Repressedangerdestabilizesthe body's immunesystem,
renderingone susceptibleto disease.How do we dealwith repressedanger? Schopenhauer
knew. He said,"Compassionis to angeraswater is to fire." I askedGeorgeCrosbyto tell

Sexand Death

ll

me his philosophyof life. He said,lockinghis eyesontomine,"Do untoothers6 youwould

havethemdo untoyou, and do itJirst."
Thereis anotherimportantreasonfor us to try and live a long life. Our specieshas
beenblessedwith the capacityto appreciateart, andthe arts give meaningto our lives. In
New York, during my hospitaltraining years,I hadthe opportunityto serveasione of the
housedoctorsat the theatersin Lincoln Center. I wasthus ableto attend,without havingto
buy a ticket, many opera,ballet, and symphonicperformancesthere. SeeingSuzanneFarrell
andPatriciaMcBride danceto choreographyof GeorgeBalanchineat perfonnancesof the
New York City Ballet in the 1960swasa wonderfuland unforgettableexperience.Seattle
Opera'sproductionof Prokofiev'sWarand Peacein 1990hadan equallygreatimpacton
me. Indeed,for peoplelike fellow memberSpeightJenkinsand me, and for many other
peoplewho careaboutsuchthings,asAndre Malraux so well puts it, "art is the last defense
againstdeath."
Existing aswe do within the constraintsof the two polesof life's magnet,underthe
dictatesof our sexualurgesat onepole andhavingto facedeathat the other,we nevertheless
canlive our lives in the present,practicingcompassion.And we canenrichoru lives through
loving andcaringrelationships,
intellectualcuriosity,andan appreciationof art.