Bowing to Life, Not the Tyrant

In our previous newsletter, Alan told the story of his brilliant grandfather—his character, life, and untimely death during the Armenian genocide. He shared the impact this loss had on his family, drawing timely parallels to the rise of authoritarianism in today’s world. If you missed that posting, you can find it here: https://alanjamesstrachan.substack.com/p/my-armenian-grandfather

Here we continue the theme of what it means to live in the shadow of authoritarianism. In this instance, we focus on the Tyrant, his psychology and behavior, juxtaposing the dominating philosophy of the Tyrant with the existential wisdom and centering spirit of the Buddhist Five Remembrances meditation.

The Tyrant desperately grasps for wealth and power, feverishly hoping these will shield him from life’s inescapable conditions—illness, aging, and death. In contrast, embracing life lessons of the Five Remembrances grants a deeper freedom not dependent upon ever-fluctuating circumstances.

Together, these two essays carry forward one of the major themes of this Substack column: How we may live and thrive “after the fall.”

Lately I’ve been wondering whether the curvature developing in my upper spine is merely the inevitable result of aging. Or, does it reflect an unconscious bowing to the fear of violence being carried out by an authoritarian regime seeking to dominate our lives?

Am I bowing because life humbles us all, because everything we are given—health, an erect spine, eyes that see clearly—we eventually lose? Because everything we have the temerity to call “mine” is simply on loan?

Or am I bowing because I feel the pressing impulse to make myself small, silent, obedient, like a terrified child cringing in the corner, praying the raging adult does not see them? Afraid to breathe because that, too, makes a sound, and all sounds that are not “Yes, master” are dangerous. And, because even the yes—the obedient, servile yes—carries a patina of danger, because there are no guarantees that the huge raging creature will not turn on you, even after you have sold your soul in obsequiousness.

This consideration is not simply personal, but generational for me. As the child of a mother who, as a three-year-old fled for her life with her family, to escape the Armenian genocide, and who lost her father to violence, I know in my bones—not only my personal bones, but also my ancestral bones—what it means to be targeted. This awareness may appear to arrive as an idea, but its roots are more intimate than that, living in my curving spine, my knotted tissue, my constricted breath. It flares when I read the news or hear certain tones of authority. I find myself asking, yet again: how do I remain open and upright in a world that trains us to cower?

The Five Remembrances

Trying to make sense of this, I turn to a Buddhist meditation known as the Five Remembrances, a challenging and illuminating reflection on the limits of our agency. Here is Thich Nhat Hanh’s version:

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

These statements articulate existential truths that define all human experience. I may not like them, I may rail against them, nevertheless they stare at me, unblinking, the unwavering conditions of embodied life.

This is why they are Remembrances: because they exist, a priori, waiting for our acknowledgement of their sovereignty over our lives. And when we do—if we do—surrender to the truth of our powerlessness to change the conditions of life, we open ourselves to being rewarded by a rich and invigorating freedom. No longer are we fighting life; rather, we align with it. That vital current that has carried us all along is recognized for what it is: the gift of being alive, wrapped in limits and an expiration date that makes what we have infinitely precious. The Remembrances are understood to be the nature of our existence, embraced as a condition we can learn from rather than a battle we must win.

The Tyrant

Enter the Tyrant.

The Tyrant longs to become one of life’s absolutes, to become an irresistible, inevitable force that shapes every life. The fist he presents to the world—both as a threat and as an attempt to clench life down to a manageable size—is his tragic attempt to rewrite the Five Remembrances, believing that by amassing limitless power and wealth he can cheat aging, illness, death, loss, and consequence. In this fantasy, he becomes a god‑like figure who decides who lives, who suffers, and who dies.

The Tyrant embodies the not-so-secret wish that lives in us all: to be in control, to get our way every time. Precisely what the Remembrances teach us is not possible.

It is such a seductive game: if only we could be powerful enough, then we could cheat death and glory in a life unfettered by restraints. “Everyone bows to me,” the Tyrant exults, “I am a God on earth.” But because the Tyrant is human, merely human, the truth that underlies the bluster and bravado, the bullying and vengeance crusades, is that he cringes, terrified, powerless and alone.

The Tyrant is here to reduce and oppress us, to squelch our creativity, truth, hope, and individuality. He is not inevitable, like the Five Remembrances, but he wants us to believe and feel he is. He wants to control not only our behavior, but even what we dare to imagine.

The Tyrant hides from life’s deeper truths. The realm of the Five Remembrances lies utterly outside his purview. Instead, he proffers his own distorted, self-serving, ever-morphing version of ”truth.” To the Tyrant, he alone is the truth. This is not simply insistence, for it reeks of desperation.

He must be the truth, or else he will have to face the raw, exposed nakedness of his existence. Owing to the Tyrant’s frenzied efforts at denial, and his profoundly wounded (and wounding) narcissism, the wisdom of the Five Remembrances seemingly plays no part in his universe.

Eventually the Tyrant will lose the battle. He cannot bend reality the way he bends people. Deep down he knows that wealth and power will not save him, that ultimately he will lose everything. This terrifying prospect makes his ravaging grasp ever more desperate. He reigns terror on others to obscure and compensate for his own inner fear, the feelings he is too weak to face. This amplifies the tragic loneliness of the Tyrant, for whom closeness and trust is never more than a shallow, temporary truce, yielding a solitary life always lived at cudgel distance from others.

Life Versus the Tyrant

The Tyrant says, I am invincible, all powerful and all knowing. Embrace my truth. Obey me, or I will make you suffer.

Life says, At some point I will take everything I have given you because nothing lasts forever. Nothing, not even you.

In a perverse way, the Remembrances and the Tyrant appear to mimic each other, telling of limits, loss, danger, and death, but they are from altogether different universes of discourse.

The Five Remembrances are here to enhance, to teach, to guide us toward engaging fully with life. To face life straight on, without blinking, without denial, without bargaining. As a spiritual teacher once remarked, You can argue with reality, but you will lose the argument. Accepting the reality of the Five Remembrances means that I have stopped arguing. I know who I am, and who I am not.

Surrendering to the truth of the Five Remembrances, I am learning to accept and surrender to life’s immutable principles. Accepting aging, illness, death, change, and personal responsibility paradoxically allows me to flourish, to embody the courage it takes to face my vulnerability and limitations without flinching. To fully embrace what it means to be human. These are gifts of life the Tyrant never will experience.

Surrendering to life’s truths is not the same as bowing to the Tyrant. Yet in this world, as it is now, we must take both into account as we choose how we navigate the rising waters in which we swim. The former requires accepting what is, the latter demands accepting lies and managing threats in return for a momentary, precarious safety.

How to Choose? What to Choose?

How do I live while the Tyrant is calling the shots? What choices do I make?

My spine is debating: Do I argue with the Tyrant, the man-who-would-be-a-god, who promises a dismal end to all who refuse to bow?

Certainly, the Tyrant evokes fear in me, as he intends. Fear can serve as a useful scout, alerting us to real threats and prompting prudent caution. But when we let fear become the master, it paralyzes, turning vigilance into chronic anxiety and bent spines, and preventing decisive action.

Tracking the behavior of the Tyrant and the growing danger of authoritarianism, I acquire information that is useful in making prudent decisions. But these choices must arise from a calm center, not from the parts of me that feel frenzied and reactive.

As my spine and spirit are learning how to respond to the Tyrant’s frantic embrace, one of the keys is to keep the lessons of the Five Remembrances steady in my heart. As the Five Remembrances inform us, “my actions are my only true belongings,” so I must wisely engage in behavior that clarifies and expresses my truth, balancing prudence with dissidence according to my conscience.

What to do, today, tomorrow, is a day-to-day discovery. Asking, with as much discernment as I can, Is this spine of mine simply growing older (hello, Five Remembrances), or Am I endeavoring to shrink—the child cowering in the corner, hoping the Tyrant won’t see me?

Am I bowing to life, or to the Tyrant?

Perhaps both are true at times, but I don’t want to mistake one for the other.

This is my meditation these days. Perhaps it is yours as well.