Read on Twitter
I haven’t read this article but I hate the narrative that this headline asserts.
Death is natural. We are part of nature. There are long and ancient contemplative traditions worldwide focused on accepting mortality.
Death denial is not necessary.
That is a cultural myth https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1312614389648896001
Death is natural. We are part of nature. There are long and ancient contemplative traditions worldwide focused on accepting mortality.
Death denial is not necessary.
That is a cultural myth https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1312614389648896001
It is a myth of dominance that outsources proximity to death to “other” communities and says its okay because “we can’t think about that”
We can absolutely forge a relationship with death. Our divorce from death and the dead is what is unnatural
We can absolutely forge a relationship with death. Our divorce from death and the dead is what is unnatural
Yes, you will have to build up your capacity to negotiate a layer of anxiety. Or be pushed across it.
In service of an accepting relationship with reality. In order to surrender grandiose illusions of immortality.
It is both doable and worth it.
In service of an accepting relationship with reality. In order to surrender grandiose illusions of immortality.
It is both doable and worth it.
We do not need to fight death.
We need to relearn to live in relationship to it.
This, for the dominant American narrative, is lost knowledge.
That does not mean it is unknowable or that it is good to not know it.
We need to relearn to live in relationship to it.
This, for the dominant American narrative, is lost knowledge.
That does not mean it is unknowable or that it is good to not know it.
And what about the bereaved? Those caring for the dying?
Those living in protracted dying processes?
We weren’t built to validate their experiences either?
“We weren’t built to think about you”
“Its not healthy for us to withstand exposure to you”
Those living in protracted dying processes?
We weren’t built to validate their experiences either?
“We weren’t built to think about you”
“Its not healthy for us to withstand exposure to you”
These are fucked up beliefs. And false ones.
And they justify so many oppressions.
We absolutely were built to live in the reality of this world. And death is absolutely as natural as the organic food you think will spare you.
And the best/worst things that ever happened to me taught me how liberating it can be, and how diseased our cultural myth is. https://twitter.com/shrinkthinks/status/1308919921318006795
And the best/worst things that ever happened to me taught me how liberating it can be, and how diseased our cultural myth is. https://twitter.com/shrinkthinks/status/1308919921318006795
There are A LOT of people on this planet and throughout history who ABSOLUTELY work on how to live in relationship to death - and if we don’t start learning from them - listening to the dead and dying and those who live with them - we will absolutely destroy each other.
I’m not going to read the article- because I don’t want a personalized argument.
I know that myth. I see it everywhere. My own profession is riddled with it.
I don’t care about the author or headline writer.
The myth that we can’t live with death is killing us.
I know that myth. I see it everywhere. My own profession is riddled with it.
I don’t care about the author or headline writer.
The myth that we can’t live with death is killing us.
“We aren’t built to think about death” reifies a cultural inflation.
We are born to live a while and die.
That is exactly what we are built for. Death and life require each other.
We are born to live a while and die.
That is exactly what we are built for. Death and life require each other.
Our dualistic and binary cultural modes of thinking have made something natural into something unhealthy to think about
And it allows us to dispose of any person, and any community and any culture that requires us to confront our mortality and proper place in the world.
And it allows us to dispose of any person, and any community and any culture that requires us to confront our mortality and proper place in the world.
