Mortality Minded

Philosophy of death 101: Introduction

What can philosophy teach us about death?

Since you could say the goal of philosophy is to help us think and communicate clearly and critically about fundamental aspects of nature and humanity, the answer seems to be—a whole lot.

That’s why I’ve decided to take this philosophy of death class, offered by Yale University through its free Open Yale Courses program, and turn my education into podcast episodes we can all learn from.

In this introduction episode, I break down how it will work, and we get a front row seat to lecture one in the series taught by Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan. The series is made up of 26 lectures, each of which will get its own episode.

This is an experiment so I don’t know how it will turn out. But I’m excited to take this journey with you and see where it takes us. Ready, future philosophers? 

Death: Lecture one (Open Yale Courses)

Death: About/Syllabus/Sessions/Survey/Buy Books (Open Yale Courses)

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license

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Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a minute to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Revisiting the first Covid wave with NYC funeral director Caroline Schrank

Back in the Spring, when the first wave of Covid-19 in the U.S. hit New York City like a tsunami, there were so many deaths in a such a short period of time that the normally seamless process of transporting, burying and cremating, and memorializing the dead was upended.

Funeral directors, typically poised managers of these end-of-life services, suddenly found themselves scrambling to adapt to a threefold conundrum: 

1. How to dispose of the dead amid a logistical logjam

2. How to support the living amid an emotional crisis in which people couldn’t be there in-person for their dying relatives and friends and couldn’t come together in-person to mourn and celebrate them after they died

3. How to keep themselves, their staffs, and their families safe amid widespread shortages of personal protective equipment meant to mitigate the spread of coronarvirus, including from the recently deceased

Today’s interview is with Caroline Schrank, a funeral director in New York City who runs Down to Earth Funerals, about what she went through both professionally and personally during those uncertain and overwhelming days.

As we approach the end of a year marked by a staggering amount of death, I’m highlighting this work—normally out-of-sight and under-appreciated—because it’s been critical throughout the pandemic, and it deserves greater recognition. 

You can reach Caroline Schrank at Down To Earth Funerals

Sources: here (scroll down once you’re there) 

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Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

The deadly roots of Thanksgiving

Whoops, I’m a few days late on this one.

Or just think of it as incredibly early for Turkey Day 2021.

Either way, this is an entry in my Bucket Nuggets series, which are short episodes about things like a great quote I came across, a fact I find interesting, or maybe just a weird thought I had recently.

Bucket as in “kicked the bucket,” a euphemism for death. And nugget as in a small bit of knowledge or wisdom. Not bucket nuggets as in, say, an obscene amount of McDonald’s McNuggets.

Speaking of food and death, though.

Today I’m taking a brief look at the roots of Thanksgiving—specifically, that most people have it completely wrong, and it was deadly and otherwise brutal for indigenous people in what would become the United States of America, according to David Silverman, a history professor at George Washington University and the author of This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving.

Sources: here (scroll down once you're there)

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Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Mortal Chats with writer and podcaster Jule Kucera

When Jule came home from work one day and found her partner, Trent—who had post traumatic stress disorder and was suicidal—dead at the age of 46, her world imploded. 

Eventually, she began blogging to help herself through the wilderness of grief and then turned that writing into a memoir, Sweet Baby Lover.

Most recently, she launched Hard Times & Hope, a podcast about life’s toughest challenges and how to navigate them.

For this episode of my Mortal Chat series, Jule and I dove deep into some of her hardest times—including her efforts to revive Trent, the ways in which her grief changed over the years, and how childhood trauma and suicidal thoughts shaped both Trent’s life and hers.

To read and hear Jule’s work, visit JuleKucera.com, where you can find her podcast, her blog, and a link to her memoir. You can also listen to Hard Times & Hope wherever you get your podcasts.

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Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Dying is no biggie (says Stoic philosopher Seneca)

This is a new type of episode I’m calling Bucket Nuggets, which are death-related tidbits about things like a great quote I came across, a fact I find interesting, or maybe just a weird thought I had recently.

And I have no shortage of off-kilter thoughts so I’ll have plenty to choose from.

Today I’m exploring a nugget of wisdom from Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, commonly known as Seneca. Yep, he’s achieved single-name status. He’s kind of like the Adele or Kanye of philosophy.

In this excerpt from a collection of his works called Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger, and Clemency, Seneca, who was a philosopher during the Roman Imperial Period in the first century C.E., drops a truth bomb—when you stop and think about it, fearing death doesn’t make much sense at all.

Sources: here (scroll down once you're there)

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Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

How reminders of death affect our politics

We’ve just finished an incredibly contentious presidential election in the U.S.* so it’s the perfect time to look at one of the most important aspects of politics: advertising. 

Political ads urge us to vote one way or another, of course. But an intriguing area of social psychology called terror management theory argues that a primal, hidden force is often at work in these messages—mortality reminders that trigger our emotions, particularly our primitive, unconscious fear of death. 

In this episode—part of my End Points series in which I explore different end-of-life topics intersecting with culture, science, and more—I break down terror management theory and its argument about political ads, including ones aired this year by both President-elect Biden and President Trump. 

And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.

Sources: here (scroll down once you’re there)

*Notwithstanding the efforts of President Trump and other Republicans to challenge the results.

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Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Mortal Chats with musician Richie

“When you really feel it (your own mortality), it’s a visceral feeling…it’s like a punch in the face or a punch in the chest. It kind of just wakes you up.”

Richie is a musician and soon-to-be recovery coach for substance abusers from Brooklyn, New York. I spoke with him for my Mortal Chats series of wide-ranging conversations about mortality and its corollaries with people of all stripes.

Richie and I dig into the vehicular roots of his growing mortality awareness, his acceptance of the pandemic as a normal feature of existence, why he doesn’t feel especially mortality minded even though he’s a Black man in America, and other topics—including the ninja-like critter he’d want to return to life as if he were reincarnated. 

And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.

Topics, et cetera, discussed in this episode include:

• Covid-19/coronavirus pandemic
• Fight Club
• Meaning and purpose
• Mortality awareness
• Obituary headlines
• Race and racism
• Reincarnation
• Squirrels
• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer
  

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Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Día de Muertos rising and the tiny mightiness of tardigrades

In this episode—part of my End Points series, a mix of end-of-life topics intersecting with culture, science, and more—I explore: 

• Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday honoring ancestors and celebrating death as a natural part of life that takes place every year on the first two or three days of November. I wanted to learn more about this increasingly popular holiday, so I looked into why it’s becoming more widely celebrated, how it works, and what inspired its start.
  
• My latest fascination—tardigrades, which are microscopic, 8-legged animals with a penchant for surviving under conditions that cause most other organisms to say bye-bye to life.

And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.

Sources: here (scroll down once you’re there)

Connect

Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

For Tara Sroka, death planning is personal

Tara Sroka helps people create online memorials, manage their digital legacies, and more through her end-of-life planning service, Bringing Death Into Life.

I spoke with Tara about why she feels called to this work—especially her launch of virtual funeral offerings amid the Covid-19 pandemic—other ways technology is changing how we mourn and honor our dead, and the downside of immortality. To learn more about Tara and end-of-life planning, connect with her on Bringing Death Into Life and @BringingDeathIntoLife on Instagram and Facebook.

And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.

Connect

Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Digging into vaccines and the possibility of an afterlife

Are vaccines a life-saving technology contributing to an unintended consequence of innovations that ultimately make us more anxious about death? (Spoiler: Probably.)

Are we headed to an afterlife or a void after we die? (Spoiler: Stop being so binary.)

If there is an afterlife and it turns out our bio-less selves can travel freely through spacetime, I am definitely checking out some dinosaurs and doing belly flops into black holes. (Minus the belly because I wouldn’t have a body, but you get my drift.)

Ideas, et cetera, mentioned in this episode—part of my End Points series, a mix of end-of-life topics intersecting with culture, science, and more—include:

• Agnosticism/atheism and religion
• Anti-vaxxers, public health, and vaccination/variolation
• Black holes, dark energy/dark matter, and string theory
  
• Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic, flu season, and smallpox eradication
  
• Death anxiety and mortality awareness

And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.

Sources: here (scroll down once you're there)

Connect

Enjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.

You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.

If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.com

Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.

(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)