It could be just a stage of denial as in the 5 stages.

Or it could go deeper and as the world around us always change, by event we cannot determine and affect us totally … like say death and we have several possible path

Subject - actively deal with it - actively not deal with it - inactively deal with it - inactively not deal with it

Ignore us as subject - let others deal with it - …

Many religions and life philosophies are around this for, well, death.