How Death Changes Your Perspective (ft. Caitlin Doughty)

MUSIC:

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion
Josef Burton, “We’re So Glad It’s You,” in Verso
Judith Butler, “Afterword,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss
Judith Butler, Frames of War
Judith Butler, Precarious Life
Naomi Cahn, “The Digital Afterlife is A Mess,” in Slate
Beverley Clack, “Constructing Death as a Form of Failure: Addressing Mortality in a Neoliberal Age,” in Immortality and the Philosophy of Death
Beverley Clack, How to Be A Failure and Still Live Well
Marianne Cooper and Maxim Voronov, “We’ve Hit Peak Denial: Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away from Reality,” in Scientific American
David Crimp, “Melancholia and Moralism,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss
Douglas Crimp, “Mourning and Militancy”
Helen de Cruz, “Thinking least (or a lot) of death: On the toxicity of positive thinking, and the power of philosophy as therapy,”
Ann Cvetkovich, “Legacies of Trauma, Legacies of Activism: ACT Up’s Lesbians,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss
Caitlin Doherty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
David Eng & David Kazanjian, “Introduction,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss
David Eng & Shinhee Han, “A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss
Valerie Hey, “Be(Long)Ing,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
Susanne Greenhalgh, “Our Lady of Flowers,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
Gil Hochberg, “From “Shooting and Crying” to “Shooting and Singing”,” in Contending Modernities
Richard Johnson, “Exemplary Differences,” Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg “Introduction,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
Adrian Kear, “Diana Between Two Deaths,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
Tamara Kneese, Deathglitch
Jess Lingel, “The Digital Remains: Social Media and Practices of Grief,” in The Information Society
Michael Massimi and Andrew Charise, “Dying, Death, and Mortality,” in Proceedings of the 27th International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics
Media Diversified, “How the West Lies to Itself in Order to Destroy the Other”
Sebastien Mena, Jukka Rintamaki, Peter Fleming, and Andre Spicer, “On the Forgetting of Corporate Irresponsibility,” in Academy of Management Review
Thomas Nagel, “Death” and “War,” in Mortal Questions
Mica Nava, “Diana and Race,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
William Odom, Richard Banks, and Dave Kirk, “Reciprocity, Deep Storage, and Letting Go”
Victoria Pitts, “Illness and Internet Empowerment,” in Health
Val Plumwood, “Meeting the Predator”
Val Plumwood, “Tasteless: Towards A Food-Based Approach to Death”
April Rosenblum, “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere”
Falguni Sheth, Toward A Political Philosophy of Race
William J. Spurlin, “I’d Rather Be the Princess Than the Queen!,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
Deborah Lynn Steinberg, “Bowie, Diana, and Why We Mourn in Public,” in The Conversation
Deborah Lynn Steinberg, “The Bad Patient: Estranged Subjects of Cancer Care,” in Body and Society
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Jatinda Verma, “Mourning Diana, Asian Style,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana

00:00 - 11:24 Chapter 1: Is This Loss?
11:24 - 21:59 Chapter 2: Prepare to Die
21:59 - 39:12 Ignoring Mass Death
39:12 - 46:43 Can We Do Anything About It?
46:43 - 1:00:00 It is Very Difficult to Make Videos About This

#Philosophy #Anxiety #Existentialism

[JRCP]

My brother died two years ago. This morning I woke up from a dream where he had eaten an ice cream I was saving. For a moment I thought I should message him about how funny this dream was, since we are both adults and it has been years since he nicked my snacks. Then I remembered we aren't both adults, because he is dead, and I can't message him anymore.

[kaidoust]

“I’m not afraid of dying. Plenty of people have done it before”

Saving the quote

[Sarah]

My dad passed away a few weeks ago, not unexpectedly. He was at home when he passed and I held his hand as he took his last breath.

I had been home to see my dad about two weeks before, when he was still awake and talkative. It was a pretty normal interaction - my dad was someone who said I love you often and I never left the house without a hug and a kiss, even when he was bedridden. So when my mom called to say he was in a semi-coma, couldn’t talk, and would likely pass soon, I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to be there for that experience given how nice our “final” interaction had been. Everyone told me “it’s ok if you aren’t here, no one will blame you. Dad knows you live far away, he knows you love him. He isn’t talking anyways.”

But a few days before he died (and a few days of absolute agony and indecision) I got a sudden urge to just go. I live 6 hours away, and my partner and I dropped everything one random Tuesday afternoon to book it back to my hometown.

To this day I don’t actually know what I was scared of. Was it seeing him dying? Was it seeing how my mom would react? All I know is when I got home he was just…incredibly peaceful. He looked like he was sleeping. When he heard my voice he raised his hand to mine, and a few hours later he was gone. There wasn’t like, a super loud gasp or anything. Honestly, it was so fucking mundane.

I know not everyone dies the way my dad did. At home, surrounded by family, warm, comfortable, not-dramatically, etc. But having seen someone I love go so bravely into whatever the heck is waiting for us on the other side (if anything) was sorta, reassuring? Like anything I did with my dad (water slides, roller coasters, riding a bike) - he always went first to show me it wasn’t scary. I hope I won’t have my turn for a long time, but knowing I’m destined to follow in the footsteps of so many people who are important to me makes it more bearable. Like father like daughter I guess 😭

I can’t really articulate further on this besides knowing I’m going to die makes me feel more connected to my loved ones and the “earth” more broadly??? Idk it’s weird.

This video came at just the right time for me. Thank you

[mannygutierrez]

"I'm just pork with delusions of grandeur" 😂😂
I'll never forget when my youthful delusions of invincibility disappeared in an instant in a very near car crash 😅

[zee]

When I was 5 years old, I asked my grandpa when he would die. It was a sunny day, we were sitting in his garden and I was hugging him while we were sitting as I so often did, and he wasn't presently sick. I simply wanted to know - as I explained to him when he expressed that my question hurt him - the date of his death, so I could calculate how much time we could still spend together to make me appreciate it even more. As a 5-year old, I'd thought my grandpa would know the answer to that question because grown-ups somehow knew everything. The fact that he couldn't give me an answer left me, an autistic child who really loved their grandpa, unsatisfied.

He died 10 years later when I was 15. I remember having a very, _very_ strong sense of foreboding when I saw him for the last time, at a café just a few days before he departed for a three-week vacation. Ironically, I was in deep shock when I got the news of his passing, because I had _wanted_ my intuition to be wrong.

My last interaction with him was outside the café. I asked him for his phone number, which I'd had forgotten and wasn't saved in our family phone, saying that I wanted to meet up with him again once he came back from vacation. - For the previous few years, my abusive mother had isolated me from my grandpa, and I'd been scared to meet him behind her back. He must've been really sad not seeing his grandchildren for all those years, perhaps he even thought it was because I didn't care about him or our relationship anymore... So when I told him I wanted to visit him again, he couldn't believe it at first, but then he was very touched.

For a long time, I was feeling a deep regret for not spending more time with him before he passed away (even though I knew it hadn't really been by choice). It was only about two years ago when I was able to let that go, because I knew - I _know for certain_ - that my grandpa died thinking he would see his grandchild again. He was looking forward to spending time with me after he came back. He died knowing I missed him and loved him and wanted him to be a part of my life. And that is the most important thing to me.

The only thing I still regret a little bit is that I don't remember his phone number, just the number of digits and what the first one or two digits were. Since I usually remember phone numbers very well, I didn't think to write it down at the time either; or, if I did, I must've lost the note by now.
It also kind of makes me scared that I will slowly forget all the other things about him until he is nothing more than a vague, cool memory. But then I remember that even this doesn't really matter - because even if my mind forgets him, my body won't. My deep love and affinity for music, I inherited from him. My unique sense of humor, I also inherited from him. The profound experience that my existence and my authentic self are a source of genuine joy for someone else, is something he gave me.

The warm tears rolling down my cheeks right now are tears of gratitude, admiration, joy, sorrow, and love. I love him so much and always will.

Dear Grandpa, thank you for everything you've shared with me. Most importantly, for being happy that I am alive.
I miss you ❤

[emmavoid]

My mom passed away when I was thirteen years old. She had been diagnosed with leukemia when I was six or so, and underwent years of chemo, hospital time, doctor visits, huge amounts of medication, and a bone marrow transplant- but thanks to all those things, I got more time with her, of better quality, than I might otherwise have had.

Roughly a year before she died, I had my first suicide attempt. I didn't understand it at the time, but anxiety, depression, and dysphoria were already taking a toll on me, and I struggled not to feel like I was a burden to everyone around me, especially my mom.

I still remember the last time I saw her before she died. She was in the ICU, nearly delirious, and I told her I was afraid to go to a high school where my best friend wouldn't be going. I'm not certain how much of what I said she understood, but she told me that I could do anything I want with my life, be anyone I wanted to be. Some part of me likes to think that she knew, on some level, that I would transition someday. I still regret not having been able to tell her, to let her know she was saying goodbye to a daughter, not a son.

I still remember the last time I saw her, in the funeral home. I couldn't cry, and hated that I couldn't cry, because I was still so shocked. The most influential person in my life was gone, and I'd never see her again.

As soon as I turned eighteen, I signed up to be a bone marrow donor, and a couple years later I was picked to donate. (It's not as bad as you think- the old method of drilling into your hip to extract marrow is very rarely used nowadays, and you're far more likely to spend six hours sitting attached to a plasmapheresis machine while suffering from very minor flu symptoms.) The recipient didn't make it more than a year after, but I suppose that (and spreading info about bone marrow donation) was a hero moment of sorts for me.

Its been over twenty years since my mom passed. I've tracked milestones in my life since then- the ten year, the fifteen year, the year I was twice as old as I'd been when she died, the year I'd officially spent more of my life without her than with her- and now I'm a year older than she was when she died. It's... painful. Sure, I don't think about it all the time, but my grief is always there with me, a part of me just as much as she is. I miss her so, so dearly, and she still shows up in my dreams, as if she'd just been away and finally came back home.

Death is a constant companion. I just hope that when it's my turn to go, I will have left as big an impact on the people I love as she left on me.

[davepowell]

My wife was 38 when we found out about her breast cancer. 7 years later she was dead.

7 years of struggle. 7 years of our children dealing with mom deteriorating.

Why was mom mad? (because cancer was in her brain) Why was mom's face so puffy? (steroids)

The mortician want us to pay for a open casket (never mind that Lorna would NEVER have let herself seen that way). The only people who needed to understand were the children, and they had already seen her fade.

Death happens. It's the worst. We miss her. She isn't in pain. She isn't being mean because her brain is rotting.

We miss her

[quilynn]

"Ironically, dying is a very social activity."

This sentence jumped out at me, it hit me how good this argument is at countering the nihilistic phrase "we all die alone".

[AuspolExplained]

"Political power is the ability to decide whose life matters" is one powerful summary. As someone who spends a lot of their time trying to get young people to care about, understand, and engage with politics there are a lot of ways to go about trying to explain how political powers impact the daily life of someone so they can understand the tangible impact of who in power affects them. That sentence works really damn well to illustrate the point that politics is not just whether or not your water and electricity are private or publicly owned. It's far deeper than that.

[Allconjecture]

"I'm relatively healthy and know nothing about boeing"

😂 Underrated joke

[relms]

"If you are dead subscribe and ring the bell, ask not for who it tolls"

Fk that was funny 😂

[LucilleFox-oy]

I lost my Mother in 2020 just before the pandemic lockdown. She'd had a cough over Christmas that wouldn't go away, she kept saying that the doctor's were going to prescribe antibiotics over the phone. Eventually, they arranged a home visit after several weeks and she didn't get better.

I saw her that day, before the Doctor arrived, then left to put on some gas and electric for her and went to work. Later than night I had a call that doctor had immediately sent her to hospital and she was in A&E. I went to see her the next day, we had about half an hour together, but she was wearing an oxygen mask and the hospital staff said she wasn't taking enough oxygen in on her own and had to be put in a coma and on a ventilator.

She spent 3 weeks in a coma before the damage the ventilator did to her lungs made it impossible for her to continue to live unassisted. I had to tell them when we wanted them to end her life.

One day, I had a mother, the next she was in a coma, and then I didn't. It's a surreal experience.

Two years later I realised I was trans and am now living as the real me, unburdened by the anxiety of how she would have taken it. But I wonder what kind of relationship we would have had quite often. My girlfriend has hung pictures up of her but I feel like a fraud looking at them, the person she knew and loved was more not me than me, the person she knew was my attempt to be the person she wanted me to be.

Her death helped me to admit to myself that I was trans, but also when she was alive it was not wanting to put her through the experience of having a trans child that contributed me to missing out on the youth I should have had.

Death is brutally weird.

[Leaga]

I want the quote "Ironically, dying is a very social activity" on a banner at my wake.

[notoriouswhitemoth]

I'm autistic. My family was abusive, and my autism exacerbated that abuse. I've had two different retail jobs where the constant masking required, denying me the means to cope with the mundane stresses of day-to-day living, was a kind of torture.

So for me, ironically... at least to an extent, I associate death with _relief._ Both in that my family dying one by one freed me from them and that at those retail jobs, taking my own life felt like the only way to free myself. Thankfully, it wasn't the only way out, I ended up quitting both and am still very much alive, but at the time, it felt like it.

[irynalobko]

being a Ukainian during the russian invasion, I have to think about death every day, several times a day - and talk about it with other people, too. a ballistic missile launched from russia reaches my area in just a few minutes, so people don't really have time to run to a shelter. so many people here have been coming to the conclusion that "if the missile hits me, it hits me; there's nothing I can do with that." becoming at peace with the possibility of dying at any given moment is the only way we can keep living and somehow functioning, especially considering the growing disinterest and ignorance from the people and countries that could actually help us.

[ladydrace]

I've been writing fanfiction for over 20 years now, and the most significant and monumental thing that ever happened to me, was when a fandom aquaintance died, and her friend reached out to me afterwards, to let me know she passed, and that my stories kept her entertained and distracted as the end drew near.
If I do nothing else in my life, at least I gave someone comfort near the end of theirs. And that's MY hero moment, I think.

[WatashiMachineFullCycle]

It took a very traumatic experience in seeing a close friend die suddenly in front of me - literally in my arms - for me to really confront death and my own mortality. I've struggled with mental health issues since I was very young. I used to want to die. After his death, I desperately wanted to live. Now, I am simply being. The concept of rotting and decomposing is no longer something that makes me uncomfortable or afraid... for myself. It isn't death that concerns me, but rather the absence of life in the people around me. The hardest lesson I took from my friend's death was that it isn't the person themself you are grieving for - but for your own life continuing without them in it.

[simonjohansson]

Abigail: "I NEED AN HEIR!""
*Tyland Lannister slowly starts backing out of the room ..

[debbieknight]

We here in the US were constantly told invading Iraq was needed because of 9/11. Then Bush said we had "a noble purpose" by going there. When asked many times by Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother of fallen soldier Casey Sheehan, what exactly that noble purpose was, Bush ran away and refused to ever elaborate on this so-called noble purpose.

[FlorSilvestre]

That poem about "I don't want to die having merely visited this world" really touched me. Beautiful work.