Confessions of a mortician

https://medium.com/matter/confessions-of-a-mortician-7a8c061bbda3

by uam • 12 years ago

127 63 12 years ago

jgmmo2• 12 years ago

Interesting article; no doubt there are some interesting things to learn about death from a mortician - however this article felt way too long.

quizotic• 12 years ago

Funny. Poignant. A little scary. A little gross. Eye opening (a la the Matrix). That's a lot of value for a 10-minute read.

MaxGabriel• 12 years ago

In fairness to jgmmo, Medium.com estimates it's a 25-minute read. You can see their estimate at the top right of each article.

asveikau• 12 years ago

I assume your complaint about the article length is that life is short, time is fleeting, and the 20 minutes you'd spend reading the article can be better put to seizing the day. Carpe diem!

bcx• 12 years ago

I thought the article was interesting, especially the author's fear of nonexistence. I know I'd much rather think of more pleasant things.

I wonder if the dearth of comments here is due to a general uncomfortableness with nonexistence.

A nice reminder that we should all be doing what we love.

mgkimsal• 12 years ago

Might also be that it's saturday night/sunday morning, and not many people are 'on' right now?

ams61102• 12 years ago

A huge number of people don't believe that after death is "nonexistence" and therefore do not fear it.

industriousthou2• 12 years ago

Hmmm... I guess we can never know the hearts of men, but it seems like many people state that they don't fear death because of a belief in the afterlife, but the vast majority of people seem to behave as though they do actually fear it.

Similarly, the religious often talk about how they're "not really saying goodbye," yet they seem to grieve as though they really are saying goodbye forever.

Not judging or anything, losing a loved one hurts and people need ways to cope. Still, people's stated beliefs often seem at odds with their actions.

Edit: a word.

jwise0• 12 years ago

For those of you who liked reading this, I (tangentially) recommend Irvin Yalom's book, "Love's Executioner" [1]. Irvin Yalom is a truly talented writer and a very talented psychotherapist; in this book (and, really, in his work), he focuses on how he and his patients grapple with death. I have a copy on my shelf that I read from time to time, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Executioner-Other-Tales-Psychoth...

rdtsc• 12 years ago

Some 10 or so years back HBO had the Six Feet Under show. It was centered around a funeral home family business. But it was a pretty good show all around. Highly recommended.

thret4• 12 years ago

Yes, and I can assure you that you are in safe hands. Six Feet Under has one of the most satisfying endings to a TV series I've ever seen. You may cry (manly tears) but you will not be disappointed.

mabbo• 12 years ago

I've never seen any of it, but I do know it was a real jumping point for Michael C. Hall, who went on to star in "Dexter". I just know I'm going to have a hard time not being freaked out by his character being semi-normal.

thret4• 12 years ago

He still talks to dead people if that helps! His brother in the show, Peter Krause went on to star in Parenthood. Parenthood grows on you, I originally started watching it for Lauren Graham but it's become one of my favourites.

thret4• 12 years ago

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour)." - Vladimir Nabokov

aantix• 12 years ago

For those who are uncomfortable with the notion of dying, I recommend the book "Staring at the Sun". Irvin D. Yalom, a therapist gives his views on death from counseling terminally ill patients.

Jach• 12 years ago

I'd recommend the book/pamphlet Death is Wrong by Gennady Stolyarov. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615932045/)

nickgrosvenor• 12 years ago

Hacker News is one of the few places where the Comments to an article are supplementary and constructive. I almost got more from your comments than the article.

unimpressive• 12 years ago

I don't want to be mean, but you adding this one is not exactly contributing to that.

drdeadringer• 12 years ago

Recently I heard the woman behind "Order of the Good Death" on Fresh Air, who also has the "Ask A Mortician" channel on Youtube.

It helps when I'm in the beginning of writing my will and directives -- 'cause I expect to die sometime, hopefully later than sooner.

christiangenco• 12 years ago

The raw terror of the inevitability of death without comfort of distraction or mental illusion — "fleshing," as Puchner describes it — was brilliantly captured here in a way I've never before heard or read expressed by another person.

It's relieving, in a way, to know that I'm not the only human to chronically go through it.

I especially enjoyed his comment on the difficulties of erecting a comforting fantasy of an afterlife:

I’ve endeavored, in my weakest moments, to believe in heaven — or at least some vague, harpless afterlife my brain won’t snicker at. But I’m still pretty much paralyzed with fear.

It's a curse, in a way, to have (be?) a brain trained to recognize and solve problems, optimize expected outcome, and see through bullshit when the popular solution to existential debilitating dread — religion — crumbles at the slightest analysis. Ignorance is bliss, to add to Puchner's ostensibly empty bromides.

That said, I've personally found that two core ideas can consistently keep me grounded (even in fits of hypercritical 4 a.m. breathless terrors):

1. I'm conscious, which is fundamentally the only thing I can really be sure of. For consciousness to arise in a completely material universe is so outside of any scientific understanding (at least currently) that there may very well be room for a kind of immortality. If consciousness is the universe experiencing itself (to borrow from Alan Watts), perhaps life is just a temporary segmentation of a tiny piece of eternal consciousness that will later be rejoined.

2. If you're reading this (ie: enjoying the temporary luxury of life), you've got a fair chance of living considerably longer than any human that has ever existed (Kurzweil et al.). It's possible that unbounded mortality could be achieved within your lifetime. This presents a new problem: the inevitable heat death of the universe (I realize the irony of immediately complaining about a lifespan that has reached eons, but it would still be a finite existence), but it's possible that there are areas of physics that have yet to be discovered that would permit hopping to a new one.

I write this precisely three weeks before getting married to the most wonderful, caring, talented, driven, intelligent, and just generally enjoyable companions I could have imagined spending my life with. I think this event has resurfaced these previously successfully buried distresses: when you have more, you have more to lose.

I'm reminded of the "4EVER YOURS" story from this year's Valentines Day Google Doodle[1] that really hits me hard:

"This will end someday...someday, one of us will die, then the other will die, but we have now."

The mental tricks are nice for when I'm in a moment of weakness, but there is something starkly beautiful and painfully focusing about the possibility that this could be it. That every time I hold her hand, every adventure we take together, and every late night goofy conversation is limited. It's a clear and constant reminder to really make these cherished moments count, though I wish with every fiber of my existence that I could make them last forever.

1. http://www.google.com/doodles/valentines-day-2014-us

Zigurd• 12 years ago

Consciousness is an evolutionary adaptation that enhances survival, partly through the ability to think about one's death. That may be the only "purpose" of consciousness. So it's not a curse any more than your small, weak, cooking-dependent jaw is. Perhaps religion is the buffer that prevents conscious beings from despairing more than is evolutionarily optimal.

cdoxsey• 12 years ago

  It's a curse, in a way, to have (be?) a brain trained to recognize and solve problems, optimize expected outcome, and see through bullshit when the popular solution to existential debilitating dread — religion — crumbles at the slightest analysis. Ignorance is bliss, to add to Puchner's ostensibly empty bromides.

There are a lot of very intelligent people who believe in an afterlife. They aren't ignorant about the reality of death, nor are they practicing "bullshit". They honestly and earnestly believe in what they advocate.

The disagreement is fundamental in nature. The afterlife was never demonstrated to be false. It was rejected because it contradicts naturalism. Believers didn't make some mistake in logic along the way, they started from a different set of assumptions.

To rephrase your original statement:

  It's a curse, in a way, to have (be?) a brain trained in logical positivism, to only accept scientific answers, and reject out-of-hand any other possible answers which might provide hope rather than existential debilitating dread

marvin2• 12 years ago

It's hard to admit in scientific company, but I have a Masters degree in science, excellent academic results, IQ well above average and still believe in God, in spite of the supposed contradictions that should apparently entail. And I'm also a relatively firm believer in rationality (including the parts of science that occasionally gets me in trouble with other religious people), with the caveat that I sometimes criticize atheists of believing in the non-existence of God or any other extra-universal entities with a fervor that comes from the same place which religious zeal does.

christiangenco does not speak for everyone when he (apparently) claims that existential dread is an unavoidable curse of intelligence and rationality.

nagrom3• 12 years ago

They may earnestly believe in it, but they cannot provide a shred of evidence that it exists and all authority that claims that it does is inevitably found to be either a) mistaken or b) fraudulent.

Very intelligent, otherwise rational people believe in false propositions that make them feel happy, relieved or secure all the time. Unless there's evidence, that belief is as unfounded as the belief of most people that their husband is noble, their wife is beautiful, their child is special, that they deserve what they have, etc. It's a very human, completely fine thing to believe all of these things (even necessary for a healthy life), but when you look at them rationally, you cannot suppose that they are true.

An afterlife doesn't need to be proven false. There just has to be some evidence, (not even proof, just any evidence beyond 'I feel it') to make it a proposition worth considering. Until then, since so many have looked for evidence and failed to find it, the only rational view of the situation is to suppose (and behave) like it doesn't. You're made of meat, death is final, there is no do-over. Make this life count, try to bring about the change that you want to see, because there is no higher authority, there is no second chance.

ams61102• 12 years ago

It's quite interesting to me that people (you, Puchner, some others here) would experience literal "breathless terrors" at the thought of one's own death. It's never come close to that for me. I've seen both my parents as well as several friends die rather unpleasant deaths (cancer) and I myself have been robbed at gunpoint but I have never felt terror contemplating my own death. It just seems to me to be the natural end of things, and it will come when it comes.

I certainly don't want to die any sooner than I have to; I'd like to see my own kids grow up, be sure they are given the opportunities I had (education, etc.) but I don't really fear dying. I'm not sure why anyone would, it's inevitable after all.

meowface3• 12 years ago

For me, the fear is not of dying, but of permanently losing the potential to ever experience any aspect of life again. It's an unsettling thought that I will never be able to experience fun, laughter, love, or success again. I won't have ideas, I won't hope, I won't dream. My conscious mind will simply join the eternal void and cease to exist.

I really dislike the idea of not only having no experiences, but never even having a chance of having any experiences again. I'd like to believe there could be some kind of afterlife, but I think it's overwhelmingly likely that there isn't one.

That's the only thing that frightens me.

There's also the aspect that I'll never be able to experience the undoubtedly amazing inventions and innovations in technology, food, entertainment, etc. that will sweep the world in the next few centuries and millennia. Many future humans will lead lives we could never even begin to dream of, and I won't even be able to observe that from afar, let alone actually participate in it.

Another fear of mine is that I will have just barely undershot the window of biological immortality. It's very possible I've missed it by 200-300 years, maybe even 100 years, which on the grand scale of human history and the universe's history is exceedingly small. So close, and yet so far.

proveanegative3• 12 years ago

Interesting. Do you believe in life after death? This is not something eagerly brought up on Hacker News but when discussing one's fear of death or lack thereof it is probably the most important bit of context to establish.

huherto• 12 years ago

I first experienced anxiety about the inevitability of death (or non-existing ever again) when I was sixteen. Grew up on atheist family so I never had the comfort from religion.

These are some of the ideas that have helped me along, in case is useful for anyone. Take what works for you, ignore the rest.

1- Don't spend too much time thinking about it. Your time is short, it is silly to waste it worrying. You cannot do much about it anyway.

2- Death is the price you pay for living. Be grateful that you had the chance. It is truly a miracle that you are even alive.

3- Enjoy life and leave a legacy. It can be as simple and as important as the way you lived your life. Your example.

4- All the evidence tells me that there is not an afterlife. But I still save a little hope. There may be things that are unknowable. May be on the form of your 1) area. So, who knows.

proveanegative3• 12 years ago

Death is the price you pay for living. Be grateful that you had the chance. It is truly a miracle that you are even alive.

Of course, the price you pay for living is not just death at the end of your life but also suffering throughout. Just how much suffering you will experience depends on many random factors the effects of some of which (like genetics and early childhood environment) are either very difficult or impossible to mitigate.

The hardest question to confront is whether the price of living is one worth paying. The antinatalists among us think that the answer to that question is generally a "no".

Gatsky• 12 years ago

Fear of non-being, whether through death, losing one's mind, dementia etc is one aspect of the problem of living. I have found in my own case that the purely rational, aspiritual approach in life leaves me with a pretty anemic and empty philosophy on how to live, composed of a few cliches and self-aggrandized 'staring into the abyss'. Eventually I found this rather unsatisfying. I was hoping for something more than a constant reminder to make good use of my short and brutish life, which I don't do anyway. On the other hand, spiritual belief systems spend all their time addressing the question of how live in expansive and well packaged detail - and there doesn't seem to be a competitive secular equivalent. That could just be my own intellectual frailty... maybe others have found such a thing, or don't think it is necessary.

The logic of atheism is inescapable, but then what? What is the point of an axiom that leads to not only nothing, but actual nothingness?

orangecat• 12 years ago

but then what?

Then we stop telling ourselves comforting fairy tales, and start treating aging and death as the catastrophes that they are. For me, that means regular donations to sens.org.

industriousthou2• 12 years ago

I think Existenitalism offers one way out of this. The idea is that the universe lacks intrinsic meaning, yet we can choose to construct meaning within it.

Also, I would point out that atheism is sort of silly. Who cares about what you don't believe in? Instead focus on what you do believe - for me, that the physical universe exists in some sort of substantial way and the other humans I meet are similar to myself (not automatons or figments of my imagination). I take it on faith that I'm not actually completely alone.

placebo• 12 years ago

The logic of atheism is inescapable, but then what?

Is it? I find that when people refer to atheism, they implicitly add to it things it does not mean. The broad definition of atheism would be the absence of belief that any deities exist, but in practice, most people who define themselves as atheists lump it up with a set of false beliefs that, although being far better than believing in a "bearded old guy in the sky who cares what I do", are still very far from being solid truths.

For example, atheism usually comes bundled with the belief that consciousness is some unreal emergent property of real stuff that is "out there" or the belief that there exists a separate material world "out there" which is different than my subjective experience "in here" (while any honest introspection into where is it that "you" leave off and the rest of the world begins would start to show the cracks in this belief).

Personally, I find the various nondual teachings far more advanced in understanding these truths than atheist-materialist philosophies and definitely far more than childish religious beliefs, and therefore better at dealing with suffering, change or acceptance of the end of a personal existence.

Of course these are deep questions and while I admit to not having clear answers, I do think answers are achievable (though not at an intellectual level) and there are enough hints to follow for who really wants to find them or (to paraphrase from an old Hassidic story), at least learn where not to look for them.

spiritplumber• 12 years ago

This is the basic fear that the repent-of-your-sins-and-give-money-to-my-church crowd preys on.... as much as a majority of them are honest, and genuinely don't want their infinitely loving god to send you to hell.

I told one once, in venice beach, that if there is a judgement in the afterlife, i'll be sure to make my judgement on his god kinder than his god's on me. He blew up on me -- enough that the cops had to tell him to calm down, which as one of said cops explained, is unusual because street preachers there get a lot of training on what's borderline acceptable legally.

At least that one was sincere in his beliefs, I guess!

mietek• 12 years ago

Your comment reads like something I might have written myself, down to the concern about the heat death of the universe. However, I have had one additional thought. Have you considered a scenario in which our universe may be virtualised?

“Being saved” could quite literally mean having the pattern of our existence stored outside the universe. “Omniscience” is simplified when you can pause a virtual machine to inspect its memory. And maybe, just maybe, there could be a way to escape the VM.

thret4• 12 years ago

If we are part of a simulation, any and all kinds of afterlife are possible (although admittedly still improbable).

Pxtl• 12 years ago

Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollable. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.

"I’m cold," Snowden said. "I’m cold."

"There, there," said Yossarian. "There, there," He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.

"I’m cold."

"There, there."

Joseph Heller, "catch-22"

noir_lord• 12 years ago

It's interesting to me how differently people feel about death.

I've never been frightened of it even when I've had serious health scares, I actually find my atheism comforting in that regard, you live your life and then you die and that's it.

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” - Mark Twain

thelettere• 12 years ago

Much of what we do every day is motivated by a fear of death. This is a well established psychological fact (supported by over 500 studies), yet ironically few are aware of it.

It goes by the name of "Terror Management Theory" and a decent review is here: https://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.16...

Interesting to note how difficult it was for them to get their idea taken seriously. Let that teach us to beware over-valuing our contemporaries opinions.

Note: a more recent review that's harder to get full text is here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215091914...

maratd• 12 years ago

Much of what we do every day is motivated by a fear of death.

Everything we do is motivated by reproduction. Avoidance of death increases the probability of it.

petercooper• 12 years ago

Being one to get distracted by irrelevant details, I wondered why the "CHECK FOR PACEMAKER" sign was so prominent in one of the pictures. It turns out pacemakers causing explosions in cremator furnaces is a major problem, in some cases damaging the cremator entirely or injuring staff: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279940/

broseph• 12 years ago

The article discusses this in its very first paragraph.

kweinber• 12 years ago

I work in the industry and there are two things that helped me through my feelings of internal dread.

1) Becker's "The Denial Of Death" is an incredible summary of Otto Rank's psychoanalytic work, explains Freud"s fallibility and explains more about human motivations in life and death (from corporations to cults, from fetuses to fetishes) than any book I've ever read.

2) A colleague once told me "life is like cake". I immediately asked him to stop because it sounded banal, but he continued with something like this: Don't waste the enjoyment of eating cake by worrying that you can't eat it forever. Just because it doesnt last forever doesn't mean you shouldnt ennoy it (just tbe opposite) . Things weren't so bad before you had the cake... and when you've finished yours, who knows, maybe you'll get to have cake another time later..

I probably butchered it and who knows where he got that from, but I found it much more motivating and comforting than carpe diem.

Confessions of a mortician

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