
South Koreans fake their funerals for life lessons - spking
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-livingfunerals/dying-for-a-better-life-south-koreans-fake-their-funerals-for-life-lessons-idUSKBN1XG038
======
Fnoord
Which reminds me of Ben X. Quoting Wikipedia [1]

(SPOILER on bottom of post.)

> Ben X is a 2007 Belgian-Dutch drama film based on the novel Nothing Was All
> He Said (Dutch: Niets Was Alles Wat Hij Zei) by Nic Balthazar, who also
> directed the film.[4] The film is about a boy with Asperger syndrome (played
> by Greg Timmermans) who retreats into the fantasy world of the MMORPG
> ArchLord to escape bullying. The film's title is a reference to the leet
> version of the Dutch phrase "(ik) ben niks", meaning "(I) am nothing".

> The novel was inspired by the true story of a boy with autism who committed
> suicide because of bullying

There is also a Swedish remake (2013):

> Erik Leijonborg adapted the film into a Swedish-language remake, IRL.

[SPOILER]The reason it reminds me of that movie, is because Ben's death is
faked to teach his bullies a (life) lesson.[/SPOILER]

Back when I watched it (it hit a spot), I did not play either MMORPGs nor did
I know I had autism. Now I know I have autism, and I played MMORPGs.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_X)

~~~
drharby
Reminded me of the futurama episode of Benders fake funeral.

------
luigi23
_Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us
postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day.

The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short
of time._

Seneca

~~~
tempguy9999
I get frustrated with this attitude which assumes everyone is in a position to
do these things.

I've lost many years of my life to physical disability, and pretty well all of
my life due to mental problems which mess up my ability to deal with
people[0], and without relationships you are nothing.

Reading this feels like someone telling others to "eat, drink and be merry",
when those others are have no food or water - but the merry advice-giver has
plenty, so what's the problem.

I'd never take away from someone else what I never had and likely never will,
but frankly I wish more fortunate people would stop dishing out their
insensitive, thoughtless advice.

[0] blah blah poor me with my sob story. Shit happens.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I don't think he's advising people to have some fun while it lasts or
something like that. I think this specific quote, out of context, may be read
like that, but I think the point is actually to ignore trivialities, such as
"eat, drink and be merry" and instead prepare for death by focusing on what is
important, like having a clear conscience and living a virtuous life. I think
it's virtue that he advises we should not postpone- don't leave being a
virtuous person for later, because detah may come at any moment, is my
reading.

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IIAOPSW
I saw a documentary on this.

The long short is "faking their deaths" doesn't mean what we normally think it
means. Its more of a therapy tactic for depressed/suicidal people where they
get to go through with it. They write goodbye notes, have a funeral, even get
put in a coffin for a few hours.

I don't know if it works but it seems promising.

~~~
Gigablah
"Faking" is the wrong word then -- more like "emulating".

~~~
manojlds
The article itself makes it clear and calls it "simulating death"

~~~
lb1lf
I grew up in a rather small community on the northwestern coast of Norway,
home to a lot of small-time fishermen working up in the Arctic.

Just about everyone my age and older still remember when a vessel was lost
back in the eighties, initial reports were all hands lost - until suddenly, a
week and a half later, the fisherman we'd all mourned for the past days came
home, puzzled as to the sensation his appearance made - he and a couple others
had been picked up off a liferaft, and Canadian authorities had misspelled his
name when notifying their Norwegian counterparts there were survivors after
all - so his family had not been notified.

Allegedly, his father's first words upon seeing him was 'F[---] me, did I just
die, or is it you who've not died after all?'

Magne is one of the few people I know who've had the pleasure of reading his
own obituary.

------
xwdv
This is actually funny to me because as a child I fondly remember playing
“Funeral” as one of our games.

The game consisted of players taking turns lying very still and dead in some
kind of coffin or just on the floor. Then everyone else takes turns going up
to your dead body and saying last words about what a good friend you were or
maybe you were an ass and the world is better off without you or absolutely
whatever you wanted to say, sometimes funny and sometimes true. Then maybe you
throw some “flower” or something and the next kid takes a turn.

When everybody has spoke their thoughts you’re covered with blankets or
pillows or whatever we had and you experience just being dead and buried,
until you get bored then you get up and it’s someone else’s turn to die.

I don’t know why we played such a morbid game as kids but there you go. Maybe
it’s why I’m so cynical and nihilist as a grown up.

~~~
Harelin
That reminds me of this scene from Better Things:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf_hk8ln2pA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf_hk8ln2pA)

------
ck425
This is fascinating. It reminds me of a line from Hamilton: "I imagine death
so much it feels more like a memory". Lin-Manual Miranda has said that was the
most auto biographical thing he's ever written and that he thinks his drive
and positivity both come from that attitude.

I wonder if there's an easy way to replicate the exercise yourself. Perhaps
every month write a letter to be read out at your funeral? One idea I had
years ago but never did was to make a short video for my funeral every year
where I shared my thoughts, fears and hopes and where I was in life. The idea
was I could look back in future and see how far I'd come, but that it would
also be useful exercise at the time.

~~~
downvoted
I'm also a big fan of reading out my favourite quotes. If you're not sure what
to say for your funeral then try to imagine yourself saying them, what do they
say and where would you want them read out? A bit like a funeral speech, but a
little more personal.

------
abhikannan
As part of many meditation process and spiritual practices in Hinduism and
Budhism, visualization of your own death is very common. And it is usually
called Death Mediation which is designed to teach you the impermanence of the
our own existence and true nature of the World.

------
aitchnyu
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori)

------
pmoriarty
_" The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets
through many a dark night."_

Nietzsche

~~~
blotter_paper
> I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit
> suicide at any time.

\--Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

------
deesep
Avoid the use of social media for a month or more and it will have the same
effect. Well, not exactly the same effect, but it will feel like you are
observing and interacting with the world like a ghost would.

~~~
bobobooey
How?

------
ISL
I have participated in a similar ritual, not as the buried, but as one of
those doing the burying. The impact on everyone present was profound.

Thanks for the reminder -- it is a timely moment to revisit those lessons.

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will_pseudonym
This has been an enjoyable, cathartic thread to read. I really vibe with the
"memento mori" concept.

One thing I'll add that I ran across is a short discussion between David Lynch
and Harry Dean Stanton discussing life, and "how they want to be remembered"

[https://twitter.com/nickusen/status/1190238682713862144](https://twitter.com/nickusen/status/1190238682713862144)

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RickJWagner
There's also symbolic death in Christian baptism.

Part of the human condition is underlying curiosity about death.

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bluedevil2k
Jim Jefferies did a nice on-the-premises comedy bit on this, it lets you see
everything involved with it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7kJmX9o8-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7kJmX9o8-E)

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hi41
Does anyone remember the article about a Buddhist monk who emulates suicide to
heal the patients. It was on HN a while back but I can't find it.

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altendo
Alan Watts talked about how one should consider their own death every so often
in his lectures. I think he would approve.

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undefined3840
This is a step above but I use an app that reminds me daily I will die.

~~~
cyborgx7
Seems like something a twitter account could solve.

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Hitton
Great advertisement. If they like the company's service alive, they are more
likely to use them when they are dead.

