Borrowed Atoms, Boundless Meaning
talking about death is healthy, we should do it more
An Infinite Game Meditation:
My body is a temporary constellation of atoms. I do not own them; I steward them for a season. When those atoms disperse, the stories I have woven (my symbolic self) can still ripple outward in minds, memories, and culture. Knowing this, I honor the meat that feels pain, and the mind that leaps beyond it, accepting that both are gifts on loan.
Ernest Becker, in The Denial of Death (1973), argues that human culture is largely a response to the terror of mortality. Knowing that the body will perish, people create symbols, stories, and institutions that promise significance beyond biological limits. These cultural constructions are what Becker calls immortality projects; they preserve self-esteem and give life purpose by projecting the self into a future it will not physically inhabit.
Human beings therefore live with a deep tension between two modes of selfhood. On one side stands the physical self, the fragile animal that eats, sweats, and inevitably decomposes. On the other stands the symbolic self, the narrative identity that imagines, vows, and seeks lasting impact through culture, art, or collective memory. Anxiety grows when body and story feel out of sync; the flesh reminds us of decay while the mind yearns for permanence.
The Church of the Infinite Game reframes this tension with the image of borrowed atoms. Each person is a temporary arrangement of matter on loan from the cosmos (star-stuff), guided by a symbolic story that can ripple outward long after the atoms become dust. Accepting this dual reality encourages gratitude for embodiment and care for legacy without clinging to either as permanent property.
Physical self
The empirical, bodily organism (“the meat that shits and rots,” as Becker bluntly puts it) subject to sickness, pain, and inevitable death. Recognizing its limits forces us to confront our mortality, the fact that we are going to die.Symbolic self
The imaginative self-concept that lives through language and shared meaning. It tracks social standing, crafts personal myth, and aspires to outlast biology through deeds remembered by others. It is our symbolic self that is God-like in scope, allowing us to traverse the universe in our minds.
Terror Management Theory (TMT) builds on Becker by demonstrating that reminders of death intensify the need for self-esteem and for world-views that promise symbolic continuance. Immortality projects such as nation, religion, art, or family serve as “anxiety buffers,” yet they can harden into dogmas that provoke conflict when threatened.
Terror Management Theory
A research program confirming Becker’s thesis that mortality awareness drives the defense of cultural world-views and personal self-worth.Immortality projects
Any cultural, creative, or moral endeavor that offers a sense of lasting significance to the individual self, thereby easing death anxiety.
Seeing the body as borrowed atoms harmonizes these layers. Stewardship replaces ownership; I care for the atoms while they form me, knowing they will later seed other patterns of life and matter. My symbolic projects (stories told, relationships nurtured) become ripples in other minds rather than monuments to possess. Accepting this frees me to live generatively rather than defensively.
Borrowed atoms
A metaphor for impermanence. The physical elements constituting a person are rented from the universe, to be returned and recycled. It invites gratitude without possessiveness.
Within CIG practice, this framing functions as a ritual lens. Participants reflect on sensations anchoring them in embodiment (“atoms on loan”) and intentions they hope will outlive them (“stories in orbit”). They ask which present fears belong to the atoms (pain, status loss, decay) and which belong to the story they wish to propagate. By distinguishing the two, individuals soften death anxiety without denying it, grounding their symbolic aspirations through humility in the face of the unknown.
Death literacy
Communal practices that normalize open talk about mortality, integrate body and story, and reduce the violence that arises when symbols are guarded as if they were flesh.
Ultimately, the borrowed-atoms lens aligns with the ethos of the Church of the Infinite Game: life is a process to inhabit, not a possession to secure. We play for the ongoing flourishing of patterns larger than any single arrangement of matter, acknowledging that the game continues even as our pieces change.
My body is a temporary constellation of atoms. I do not own them; I steward them for a season. When those atoms disperse, the stories I have woven (my symbolic self) can still ripple outward in minds, memories, and culture. Knowing this, I honor the meat that feels pain, and the mind that leaps beyond it, accepting that both are gifts on loan.