Breakthrough Writer

The Death of Ivan Ilych Lessons on One Post

Lesson One

Lesson Two

Lesson Three

Lesson Four

 

Lesson #3: Using Literary Present Verb Tense, Effective Thesis and Introductions

Using the Literary Present Verb Tense in Your Essays and Knowing When to Use the Past Tense

Link for knowing the difference between present and past verb tense in your essays

When It's Okay to Shift from Past to Present Tense in Your Essays

Using the Literary Present

Using Present Tense in Literature and Film

Tenses in Literary and History Essays

Writing Complex Sentences Correctly

List of Subordinating Conjunctions

Defining Subordination Conjunctions

Using Subordinate Conjunctions to Make Dependent Clauses

Writing Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences

Some Students Are Writing Mixed Sentence Structure: (They are combining subordinating conjunction with coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) or conjunctive adverbs. 

While man must find meaning, but he lives in the existential vacuum. 

Although we all must suffer, however we can use suffering to find meaning. 

Although we want to avoid suffering, but it is precisely suffering that forces us to fulfull our life purpose. 

Also students are using "although" incorrectly by placing a comma after it when "although" begins a dependent clause. 

Although, Sherry drives a Camry, she wants a BMW. 

Although, reading Man's Search for Meaning proved difficult, the book changed my life. 

Examples of Weak and Strong Thesis Statements

I sure wouldn't want to be like Ivan.

Ivan's marriage was a living hell.

Ivan's wife was a lousy person. 

Ivan's death made him look at his life for what it was, a joke. 

Ivan's life was full of vanity.

Ivan's life was all image, no substance.

Ivan cared too much about material things. 

There's no point in writing this essay since the story is boring and there are no appealing characters. McMahon, I hate you. The very fact that you assigned this novel makes you the worst professor ever. 

McMahon, next time can we watch a movie?

More Successful Thesis Statements

Ivan's failure to embrace meaning, and his society at large, creates a system of mutual dehumanization, which doesn't becomes revealed in all its horror until the process of Ivan's slow, agonizing death. This dehumanization consists of alienation of others (outcasting the dying for being "impolite"), commodification of human beings (using each other as trophies for a preferred image), narcissistic denial of death ("I'm too special. It wouldn't happen to me."), and the libido ostentandi (waiting for grand moments while real life passes us by). 

Introducing Your Essay

You should have an opening paragraph that slaps the reader in the face, grabs the reader's attention, and establishes the relevance of your essay. 

Some Good Introductory Techniques Followed by Transitions That Bridge Us to the Thesis Paragraph

A striking dramatic narrative:

An old woman at a bazaar in Buenos Aires was wearing a mink coat to show off her riches. When the hot weather made her overcome with sweat and discomfort, she forced herself to keep her jacket on, so adamant was her vanity. Soon after she died from heat stroke. Likewise, Ivan Ilyich was a victim of his own vanity and his refusal to embrace meaning, which resulted in _________, _________, __________, and ____________.

 

Use a Salient Quotation

 

George Bernard Shaw said there are two tragedies in life: The first is not getting what we want; the second is getting it. Indeed, Ivan Ilyich received all he wanted in the materialistic sense and that was his very tragedy, that he lived in the existential vacuum, which resulted in __________, __________, _________, and _____________. 

 

Define an Important Term

The libido ostentandi is the need to show off your ostentatious lifestyle. It is of course a desire fueled by vanity. Surely, we can say that Ivan Ilyich was a man driven by the libido ostentandi, one of the symptoms of living in the existential vacuum. The other symptoms include _________, __________, ________, and __________. 

 

 

Lexicon

1. empathy, being able to imagine and feel the suffering of others without condescening to them or pitying them in a way that insults their humanity.

The other characters cannot fathom Ivan's suffering. In spite of hiring a lot of experts, no one can grasp Ivan's illness and there is an implicit accusation that Ivan is being "difficult" as if his deathly illness were born from some immoral and impolite part of him.

Also the illness remains ambiguous and thus can be called an existential illness, one that transcends the physical and is in truth a spiritual disease in addition to being a physical affliction.

2. Contempt: Because no one wants to face death and because Ivan has become a conduit for death, everyone shuns him as a curse. Ivan becomes a plague to his family and community. Thus in his miserable deathly illness when he needs human compassion the most, the human race turns on him and he faces his sickness in insufferable solitude. 

3. Cruel irony of the libido ostentandi: All the people that Ivan tried to impress, all the people whose admiration he desired above all else, turn out to be miserable, delusional, unworthy creatures and thus Ivan realizes he has pissed his life away on nonsense. His whole life has been a complete waste. This is the real source of his pain, even more than his terminal disease.

To pour salt into the wound, we see at the end of Part V as he lie on his bed that he and his wife's mutual hatred is more raw and chilling and ever. Their mutual hatred is bare to the bone. "He hated her from the bottom of his soul."

Contrast this with Viktor Frankl's love for his wife who becomes a spirit of solace, "accompanying" him in the concentration camps, giving him comfort and transcendence. 

To pour yet even more salt into his wounds, he sees everyone waiting for him to die so that he will no longer be an inconvenience to them. See opening of Part VII. 

4. We all have an "it" in our life, an obsession that consumes our thoughts no matter how much we distract ourselves. In Ivan's case, the "it" is his terminal illness if not death itself. For some of us it can be:

The Great Rejection

The Great Loss of Money

The Great Betrayal

The Missed Pot of Gold or The Missed Opportunity

Revenge

The Great Resolve (we try over and over to be good but we become our worst version of ourselves in spite of our earnest intentions)

(as an aside, it's been said that all fiction is about obsession)

One. What stages of accepting death do we see in the opening of Part VI? "I cannot die because my emotions are more significant than others, more deep." Therefore, Ivan is a narcissist. "No one of my unique and special grandeur and greatness could ever die."

Two. How is Ivan being stripped to a bare naked existence, as Frankl puts it, in Parts VI and VII?

For one, he is stripped of his status, all the things he did to build an image that would win the admiration of others. 

For two, he sees that his life, especially his marriage, is a farce, a sham, and a lie. In other words, Ivan is stripped of his illusions about who is and what his life has become. 

Three. How is Gerasim a Man of Meaning torn from the pages of Viktor Frankl’s book? He embraces compassion for another with a good spirit. 

Compare this to comedian Louis CK who says he is evil for his selfish desire to own an Infiniti. Every day he drives an Infiniti he is responsible for hundreds of deaths of those starving. Why? Because he could sell his Infiniti, replace it with a cheap car and give the excess money to the poor. This is a familiar argument posited by Peter Singer in a New York Times article. 

Four. Contrast Gerasim’s behavior and attitude toward Ivan with everyone else in the novella. Gerasim embraces the hard work of giving Ivan comfort with joy while everyone else looks at Ivan as a curse. 

Five. What deception tortures Ivan in Part VI? Explain. Everyone believes, in a condition of willed denial, that Ivan is not deathly ill. He just needs to rest and in a while he will get better. This is a selfish deception so no one has to confront death. Their denial of his death justifies their self-indulgent lifestyle, luxuriating in delicious dishes, having wanton conversation, etc. This vision of selfishness sours Ivan but I wonder if deep down he knows he has would do the same if he were in their shoes. 

Six. Why is there shame surrounding Ivan’s death when there should be courage and dignity? See Part VII. The shame lies in Ivan's longing for pity from people who are not even worthy of giving him pity. 

In other words, Ivan becomes a misanthrope, a hater of the human race, and his hatred extends toward himself. 

Seven. What bitterness awaits Ivan in Part IX? Even the Child Inside Him, the little boy with fond memories, has died. And then to make matters worse, he asks himself for what purpose did he live and he has no purpose other than to feed his vanity. 

Eight. How does Part IX suggest we need a life of meaning to prepare ourselves for the times in life we are helpless? Contrast, Ivan's helpless state to the people Frankl profiles who are near death yet have found peace and dignity. 

Lesson #2: So Much Money and So Much Misery

 

Pronoun Errors: Don't Change Your Pronouns

Here are some pronouns we use when writing essays:

one: One usually must wait for one's intellect to match one's spirit. 

you (usually discouraged by professors): You must not run away from the fox and into the mouth of the lion. You must in other words embrace the smaller challenges to avoid catastrophe. 

he (frowned upon in colleges): A person uninformed will often panic when he is faced with a difficult decision.

she (more acceptable in colleges) A person uninformed will often panic when she is faced with a difficult decision.

they (acceptable): When people join fanatical ideologies, they are often vulnerable to brainwashing and exploitation. They would be well advised to shun such extreme and fanatical groups.

We (acceptablity level varies; check with your professor): When we are confronted with the existential vacuum, we must ask ourselves, what is the antidote or the cure for such a vexing situation?

Incorrect pronoun changes

When a person stuffs himself with pizza they are overcome with upset stomach making you want to run to the bathroom. We should be moderate in our eating. That way you will not be embarrassed in social situations by a raging stomach that can afflict all of us. One must remember this principle if you are to be successful in life. 

 

Pronoun Agreement Link

Using Pronouns Clearly

Pronoun Agreement Rules

 

Weak Or Questionable Thesis Examples

 

Ivan Ilyich lived a failed life.

Ivan Ilyich lived the "proper" life, which was his downfall.

Ivan Ilyich lived a horrible, lonely life.

Ivan Ilyich had a crappy marriage.

Ivan Ilyich's life had no meaning.

Ivan Ilyich didn't devote enough time to fixing his marriage. They should have gone into counseling. 

Ivan Ilyich is a vain, pompous ass who deserved what he got.

Ivan got rich but could never get over his loneliness.

Ivan Ilyich is my hero for sticking to his guns.

Ivan Ilyich was a good man who was betrayed by an ungrateful family.

McMahon is unfair in his judgment of Ivan Ilyich who was simply a good man who got back-stabbed by a sick, superficial society.

Better Thesis

 

 

McMahon's interpretation of the novella fails in many ways, including ____________, ___________, ____________, and __________________.

 

 

Ivan Ilyich embodies the principle that "the ordinary life is the most terrible life at all." This becomes clear when we examine the ordinary and its dangerous consequences in the context of Viktor Frankl's existential vacuum. The consequences of Ivan Ilyich's refusal to embrace meaning and instead to live inside the existential vacuum are evidenced in the story in many ways including ___________________, ___________________,  ____________________, _____________, and ____________________. 

McMahon's Thesis

Without a life of meaning as described by Viktor Frankl, Ivan Ilyich foresakes his Higher Self and instead coddles his Infant Demon, a soul doomed to the existential vacuum evidenced by blind ambition, a toxic, hate-fueled marriage, virulent materialism (philistinism), narcissistic self-pity, and a complete surrender to the Assumed Consensus. 

 

Symptoms of Ivan Ilyich's Existential Vacuum

1. Narcissism: all energies and attention directed toward the self so that external reality does not register. Such extreme self-centeredness, as evident in Ivan, is a form of insanity and is also called solipsism. 

People become narcissistic because their lives lack meaning and in their boredom they turn inward, fretting about themselves. Self-centeredness is the natural obsession of a life without meaning. 

2. Bitterness: inflated expectations of self-glory are never met so that the narcissist feels bitter, that he never got his due even though Ivan lives a life of status and privilege. The problem is that his status and privilege fail him and make him feel disappointed, bitter, and remorseful.

3. Ennui, the boredom from becoming numb on the "hedonic treadmill." Also without meaning, the spirit sucuumbs to ennui, spiritual boredom.

4. philistine, Ivan has no interest in culture, the arts, or fashion except as a show to others, but without authentic passion he can only define himself by the things he buys for himself and as such he is a philistine.

5. Paranoia, the inflated self-importance of a narcissist like Ivan compels him to create scenarios in which fictitious enemies are plotting against him, trying to destroy him, and trying to overtake his empire. In truth, Ivan is his own worst enemy and he is being devoured by the existential vacuum.

 

One. What evidences that Ivan has declined in Part III to a petty man inclined to self-pity and an ugly sense of entitlement? Consider his missed job promotion and his increased financial “needs.” And consider his need to “punish those who don’t appreciate him.”

Two. Why does Ivan suffer from ennui during a summer leave from work? What demons must he confront without the bustle of his job?

In truth, Ivan's job is relief from the hell of his marriage. More than anything, his marriage is killing him both physically and spiritually. His marriage is the cornerstone of his phone life, a life wasted on mutual disrespect. 

Three. How do Ivan’s misguided activities in Part III suggest he is reacting to the existential vacuum? Is he really “completely happy” or is the narrator being ironic, really meaning, “temporarily assuaged”?

Every time Ivan becomes bored or has a fight with his wife, he puts a band-aid on his crisis by buying a new toy, erecting a new household item, or getting a job promotion, but like a child bored with a toy, he soon grows sullen and begins to crave a new band-aid to feebly cover his deeper problem, which is his life has no meaning. 

Thus the "death" of Ivan Ilyich is really about the death that results from the existential vacuum. The physical death is almost an afterthought.

Four.  How does consumerism buoy Ivan’s marriage and give it a patina of loveliness and harmony? The same answer as above. 

Five. What evidences soulless conformity in Ivan’s house? They have to buy things that will impress party guests. 

Six. What suggests Ivan is always living just beyond his means? He is like a drug addict who needs to feed his libido ostentandi (drive to be ostentatious) with all his resources so that he is under constant financial burden. 

Seven. How does Ivan’s professional conduct in Part III reveal him to be an abject hypocrite completely absent of empathy and a thoroughly wretched human being? He only behaves decently toward his underlings in front of others but when no one is watching he exacts cruelty upon his employees and thus reveals his true sadistic self, a barren man hungry for power to compensate for the existential vacuum. 

Eight. Based on Ivan’s reading and consumer habits in Part III, how can we definitively say that he is a dreaded philistine? He only buys things to impress others, not himself. He has no appreciation for things other than as trophies. 

Nine. How are Ivan’s home entertainments indicative of the Chanel No. 5 Moment? The Chanel No. 5 Moment (those moments we bathe in the glory of thinking we are the center of attention and admiration) feeds delusions of grandeur but it is also ethereal or short-lived and must be constantly recreated.

Like most people, Ivan's life is about enduring the excruciating intervals between one Chanel No. 5 Moment and the next. All the while, Ivan is dying inside. 

Ten. What evidence in Part IV suggests neither Ivan nor his wife have ever matured or found meaning? At one point, they fight over the costs of party expenses to the point that they almost kill each other and get a divorce. Are the party costs the real issue? No, the real issue is that they live in a loveless marriage and they know deep down that they are wasting their lives on a fake marriage. As such, they lack self-respect and respect for each other. 

Eleven. Why is Ivan’s wife torn by feelings of wanting Ivan to die and not wanting him to die?

Twelve. What is the response of Ivan’s wife and daughter to his worsening illness? See Part IV near the end.

Thirteen. How, so to speak, does Ivan see the vultures circling at the end of Part IV?

Fourteen. What evidence is there that Ivan is becoming more and more ostracized for his fatal illness? End of Part IV and Part V.

Fifteen. Ivan feels he is going insane in Part V. Explain. People live with their illusions about death while Ivan has lost his. The disparity between his worldview and theirs is surreal. Imagine, if you will, having a dream that you're on a school playground and everyone is having fun and laughing at which time you see a ferocious dinosaur, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, approaching from a distant field. You scream to warn the others but they ignore you and continue playing. That's how Ivan feels. 

 

If You Want to Read the Story Online, Here It Is:

Online Short Story

 

Revisiting the Writing Assignment

In the beginning of Part II we read that "Ivan Illych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." Develop a thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components that explain this opening line in the context of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Successful, A-level essays will include additional examples from personal experience. 

The same assignment worded differently:

Ivan is obsessed with a "proper" and "correct" life and those things that were "proper" and "correct" failed him. Explain by developing a thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components. 

 

Failed Thesis Statements That Address the Essay Topic

Too general or broad

Too obvious

Thesis doesn't lend itself to mapping components or body paragraph topic sentences

Better example of a thesis that addresses the topic:

 

Story Questions

1.     How does provisional self-interest raise its ugly head in the opening scene? Death is not a time to contemplate the loss of life, the meaning of life, or the service we might assert to the loved ones of the dead. Rather, death is nothing more than a possible job promotion. One less person exists between us and our goal. The death of others should be celebrated. 

The second thing death means is this: "Oh, crap, I've got to go to a funeral. What a pain in the ass, man."

2.     What is the role of schadenfreude in the opening scene? The failure, demise, and even death of others means my possible success. And relief. "It is he who is dead and not I."

3.     How in effect is death rude in the opening scene evidenced by the resentment in the men’s inner thoughts? Ivan made a mess of things. What's amazing in the opening scene is that Ivan's colleagues act as if Ivan's illness and eventual death was part of "an act," an exercise of self-attention, impudence (offensively bold, immodest behavior). "But what really was the matter with him?" "The doctors couldn't say." In other words, they question the authenticity of his illness. Somehow, Ivan's troubles were the result of a moral flaw that inconvenienced others.  

4.     Describe Peter’s fearful reaction to the corpse and connect that reaction with something Franz Kafka wrote: “The fear of death is the fear of an unfulfilled life.” Also, Peter is a coward who doesn't want to face the reality that death usually doesn't come instantly. Rather we suffer a long time before it arrives. Secondly, we die alone. We have to be at peace with ourselves and people in the hell of the existential vacuum are never content to be alone. They live in abject fear. 

5.     How does Gerasim’s acceptance of death in Part I complement Viktor Frankl’s idea that death completes life? "It's God's will. We shall all come to it someday." He accepts death as part of life. Like Frankl writes, death complements and fulfills life. 

6.     How are Peter and Gerasim counterparts to one another? Peter is a coward who lives a life of self-interest and as such is not worthy of suffering. Gerasim is committed to service toward others. 

7.     How does the opening of Part II complement Viktor Frankl’s main message about choosing meaning? "Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." As Frankl writes, the ordinary life, one of self-interest and the existential vacuum, is a form of hell. 

8.     In Part II, how is Ivan painted as a man who follows the morality of conformity? What is such a morality? What are its limitations?

9.     How does Ivan conform to Pascal’s life of diversion and appearances?

10.       How does Ivan couch his infidelity within social acceptance in Part II? How does his handling of the matter paint him as being full of B.S.?

11.       With Ivan’s pursuit of power and comfort, how do you define “worldliness”? Playing the sycophant game; be a sycophant and someday have your own sycophants.

12.       How is Ivan’s life a heartless life, one that’s all calculation and no heart?

13.       Why does Ivan’s wife abruptly become a petulant malcontent and how is this a stereotype of the wife in marriage? In fact, Ivan too is a petulant malcontent. They hate each other because they use each others as commodities for achieving their vanity. 

14.     Why does Ivan try to create an existence outside of his family life and how does this support the contention made at the beginning of Part II?

15.      How and why does Ivan’s marriage become a bottomless cesspool of arguments and incriminations? In other words, his marriage has become a hell from which he cannot escape except from work and adultery. Apparently, Tolstoy saw this as the common condition.

16.     How does Ivan’s sense of power compensate for his impotent home life?

17.     Is it possible that the stress in his marriage killed him? Broke down his immune system? Explain.

 

 

Lesson #1: What Does It Mean to Own Your Life?

 

Online Short Story

 

Writing Assignment

Essay 4: In a 6-page research paper, analyze the life of Ivan Ilych in the context of Man’s Search for Meaning

 

What does it mean to live a correct and proper life, the kind that Ivan lived?

1. It means to "play the game."

What does it mean to "play the game"?

Ivan Played the Game

Playing the game means the following:

1. Conforming to the established ideals of what is assumed to be the most desirable life as dictated by the assumed consensus, the conventions that we learn to believe are the "thing to do."

Examples

Getting married, having children, buying a new car every 3 years, buying a house, taking your children to gymnastics class, etc. This becomes a vicious cycle: The more you conform and get positive feedback, the more you want to conform, so that you become something that isn't necessarily you. You often lose yourself. 

Non-thinking people obey the assumed consensus, which upon close inspection DOES NOT EXIST. 

"Why are you in this line for the movie?"

"Because they said that's where the line is."

No one knows who they is, but everyone assumes there is a they. THERE IS NO THEY. 

But cultural pressures to be thin, or to wear a certain fashion label or to drive a certain car are driven by the INVISIBLE THEY, the assumed consensus. 

The assumed consensus is often wrong. When we bow down to the consensus, we're guilty of groupthink, sacificing our critical thinking skills to obey those in power or the majority.

All trends and false beliefs come from the Assumed Consensus, which often goes unquestioned in the form of Groupthink. 

We often laugh at jokes that aren't funny because we assume we're supposed to laugh at them.

Music, fashion, TV shows, film, even our college major are often determined by the Assumed Consensus. 

There was an ugly time in American history when the Assumed Consensus, the majority, gave moral justification to slavery, which was a convention supported by the Assumed Consensus of its time. 

Other Examples:

4-winged butterfly,

low-fat diet, vegetarian and vegan diet,

taking vitamins,

DDT,

Nuke drills,

airport security scanners vs. being pat down

2. Another part of living the "correct" life is living a life devoted to impressing the Assumed Consensus. We call this impulse vanity and it results in spiritual death, thus the title The Death of Ivan Ilyich. 

3. Wearing a mask of politeness and decorum in order to establish alliances to propel your ambition. The Assumed Consensus admires this mask and ambition. 

4. Maintaining your reputation in the community. 

 

Most people do not own their lives because they live in accordance with the Assumed Consensus, AKA, in its most deragatory word construction, AssCon. 

Ivan Ilyich's spiritual death resulted from basing his entire life on AssCon, the Assumed Consensus. He was conned and he made an ass of himself. Over 90 percent of the human race are beholden to AssCon and have no Third Eye to question it. 

Personal Example

I recently made an ass of myself for conforming to the Assumed Consensus. I bought a refrigerator with the ice-making function that I didn't need. Now I have a noisy fridge and when you include the plumbing costs for a new water line I overspent by $900. 

The Assumed Consensus Kills You by a Thousand Small Cuts

You need an ice fridge

You need a smart phone, unlimited texting, movies, wireless Interent, etc.

gym membership (often not used)

You need a Kindle Fire

You need a iPad

You need a new car every 3 or 4 years

You need cable with all the premium channels

You need to buy all your family and friends presents during the holidays

You need all those Internet subscriptions and one-day sales

Before you know it, you're a slave to financial debt over things you don't need because you slowly became beholden to the "rules" of the Assumed Consensus

A Failed Life (Ivan's)

Living a proper and correct life, that is playing the game and conforming to the dictates of the Assumed Consensus, and taking the game too seriously so that the game becomes your ENTIRE LIFE.

A Successful Life Means Owning Yourself

Owning yourself: This means you play the game (because to a certain degree you know you have to) but you know the game is a joke. Therefore, you don't  base your identity on playing the game. 

The wise man plays the game and knows it's a game. In contrast, the fool plays the game lets the game take over his whole life, resulting in a life of vanity, narcissism, egotism, solipsism, and loneliness. 

The fool is blind to his vanity, his vain motivations, which make him compulsive. He is the opposite of self-possessed. 

Types of People Who Own Themselves

Misfits, the persectuted, outcasts, people who were bullied in high school. 

They never enjoyed approval from the assumed consensus so they had to create themselves and in essence own themselves. 

 Lexicon

1. "proper" or "correct" life: The facade we build based on others' expectations of success and happiness that always cuts a wedge between our inner life and our outer life. The more we commit to the "proper" life, the greater our self-betrayal and eventual self-destruction.

2. Provisional self-interest: selfishness based on a futile attempt to compensate for a failed inner life by committing with all our desperation to the "proper" life.

3. schadenfreude: The disgusting and perverse pleasure we experience when we see others fail or suffer humilation, rejection, or some other setback. Schadenfreude attests to our Darwinian hard-wiring, which compels us to see others as competitition suitable to be destroyed as we dominate Planet Earth.

4. Immortal Hypnosis Disorder: The majority of the world sleep-walks under the cloud of IHD, a denial of death so engrained that we don't even know we're in denial.

The Assumed Consensus reinforces this denial. "It's impolite to bring up death, our mortality."

We commit our entire lives to reinforcing this denial and become hostile and fearful when anyone compromises our condition of IHD. Even a person getting cancer is threatening our IHD and as a result we resent the sick and the dying.

5. Sycophantic decorum as dictated by the Assumed Consensus: The kind of BS and butt-kissing that becomes so common that we take it for granted as the way we have to be in order to ascend the social and professional ladder. In turn, if we should reach a high position, we expect our underlings to kiss our butts with the same commitment we used when we were butt-kissers.

6. Petulant malcontent: A whiner who sees the world as owing him pleasure while this parasitic whiner does not have any plans on giving back ANYTHING to the world from which he expects everything.

7. Intractable Marital Hostility Immune Disorder: When the husband and wife learn over time to hate each other and only relate to each other as enemies causing so much constant stress that they slowly kill each other by breaking down the other's immune system. This is why Ivan Ilych came down with cancer and died. His marriage was a hell that compromised his immune system.

8. Existential Vacuum: We are born to crave meaning as our ultimate goal. When we lack meaning, we experience the existential vacuum: We become anxious, desperate, and too often compelled to fill the void with misguided obsessions, goals, chimeras, mirages, distractions, and false panaceas.

These misguided passions can be broken down into 4 overlapping categories. 

One: hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good. Hedonism always fails us because we acclimate to pleasure so that more and more of the stimulus is required to activate our pleasure sensors. When we become more and more sensitized and numb to pleasure stimulus, we experience the "hedonic treadmill."

Two. Darwinian Dominance, the pursuit of power as the highest good. 

Three. Libido Ostentandi, the preoccupation with creating a facade that makes others convinced we are happy and good and successful so that we can, by watching others' admire us, fool ourselves into believing we are happy and good and successful. 

Four. Reckless nihilism, the pursuit of addiction-induced oblivion and mindlessness to take away the agony from languishing through a life without meaning. 

9. Frankl's Ultimatum: Either live a life of service to others and be worthy of your suffering or live a futile, lonely existence in which you are committed to the feeble pursuit of satisfying your pleasures, your appetites, and your vanity. 

10. Short Version of Frankl's Ultimatum: Either be worthy of your suffering by committing yourself to a purposeful life of service to others or act as if life is about consuming your selfish pleasures. 

11. Ache, the adult realization that you are not Number One in the universe and the understanding that your desires will always outstrip your capacity to satisfy them. Recognizing Ache is the first step to becoming an adult and developing a viable orientation to the world, an orientation based on meaning. 

12. Mutual Marital Commodification: Ivan Ilyich and his wife Praskovya Fedorovna hate each other because the foundation of the marriage is based on MMC: Deep down they know they don't love each other as human beings. Rather, they use each other as commodities. Thus the very foundation of their marriage is based on mutual disrespect.

And what are they using each other for as commodities? Trophies essentially or to refer to an earlier lexicon term, they use each other to achieve the libido ostentandi.   

McMahon's Thesis

What is really Ivan's "death"? It is spiritual in nature and results from his slavish devotion to conforming to the Assumed Consensus evidenced by ____________, ___________, ____________, and ______________. 

Ivan Ilyich never owned his life, as McMahon likes to say, which translates into a life without meaning, a life doomed to languish in the existential vacuum, evidenced by ____________, ________________, ______________, and ________________.