
Confessions of a mortician - uam
https://medium.com/matter/confessions-of-a-mortician-7a8c061bbda3
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thret
"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

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rdtsc
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.

~~~
mabbo
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.

~~~
thret
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.

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thelettere
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...](https://www.uni-
ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.160/Psychologie/Sozialpsychologie/19_Greenberg_Arndt_Terror_Management_Theory.pdf)

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...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215091914000042)

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maratd
> 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.

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jwise0
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...](http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Executioner-Other-Tales-
Psychotherapy/dp/0465020119)

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petercooper
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/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279940/)

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broseph
The article discusses this in its very first paragraph.

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kweinber
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.

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christiangenco
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](http://www.google.com/doodles/valentines-day-2014-us)

~~~
Gatsky
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?

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placebo
>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.

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drdeadringer
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.

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bcx
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.

~~~
ams6110
A huge number of people don't believe that after death is "nonexistence" and
therefore do not fear it.

~~~
industriousthou
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.

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aantix
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
I'd recommend the book/pamphlet _Death is Wrong_ by Gennady Stolyarov.
([http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615932045/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615932045/))

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

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quizotic
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
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.

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jgmmo
I did not even know about this feature; thanks for the tip.

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

