16 ms·

The Art of Dying

149 points by kaboro 7y ago

js2 7y ago
The author was interviewed on today's Morning Edition: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/21/790422181/peter-schjeldahl-on-the-art-of-dying https://www.npr.org/2019/12/21/790422181/peter-schjeldahl-on...
cryptozeus 7y ago
“Life doesn’t go on. It goes nowhere except away. Death goes on. Going on is what death does for a living. The secret to surviving in the universe is to be dead.”
- ggm 7y ago
  we're dead a lot longer than we're alive. a lot longer. we're dead longer than before we lived lasted.
bg24 7y ago
Speaking of dying, the world would be so much better if people died without pain. They would spare themselves and the closed ones from a lot of pain when the end result is obvious (death). Pain hurts. Both physically and mentally.
- tamaharbor 7y ago
  A family member with Stage IV cancer who can hardly move has to Uber into NYC weekly for them to 'approve' his pain medication. What are they worried about?
  - JshWright 7y ago
    The system isn't flexible enough to account for the obviously correct cases. It has to be designed to combat the malicious actor (at least ostensibly... in practice it generally fails on both ends)
- mrandish 7y ago
  I'm not afraid of being dead but I'm worried about the experience of dying as long as we haven't fixed the broken way our laws make it so difficult for medical caregivers to use drugs for pain management.
  - kls 7y ago
    It's funny I don't fear death and I don't fear the process but there are a few ways that I would not want to die. Burning to death would be high on that list as it is extremely painful to burn. I was burned fairly severely on my legs as a kid. The pains of death from old age that I have seen do not really scare me. That being said, and what I wanted to mention is that I don't fly, not because I fear death by plane crash but because I made the mistake of listing to a flight recorder one time and I developed a phobia of dying around a bunch of other people sharing that same fate. It really shook me that to die in a situation like that, it would be very hard to make your peace with death. With all the screaming and pleading going on around you. Not that I don't have empathy for those people but I have to steady myself and god forbid my family for the inevitable. I always liked the quote from Marcus Aurelius "Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back" I think of that quote a lot when I am spearfishing and there are sharks around.
    - bodka 7y ago
      so philosophical
    - askafriend 7y ago
      You don't fly? ...do you drive?
      - kls 7y ago
        Yes I understand it is irrational. It's not the fear of death, I just don't want to die with a bunch of people I do not know that cannot steady themselves.
        smabie 7y ago
- thorei 7y ago
  The family dynamics get really messy with this. I have an uncle who regularly expresses to me his desire to "get put to sleep peacefully like the family dogs" rather than be terrified all the time and waiting around to choke to death (late stage Parkinson's, and everything that can be is done is being done). My response is always, "I'll be the first to make that drive with you, but not while your brother is alive." There are some types of dog owners who as the dog ages will hit point where they're no longer keeping the dog alive for the dog's sake, but for their own. It's a bit like that, except they're not in a position to make that decision for them. But they'll do it all the same.
andrewfromx 7y ago
Think of the wake of a ship slicing thru water. The very distant past you can barely see anymore. The present is very bubbly and froth with waves. After the wake is completely gone, did it even happen? The body of water is calm and smooth again, no record of this "event". See Alan Watts on cause and effect; really discrete events like birth, death or is all of nature just 1 big event?
- shostack 7y ago
  I've heard him in voice tracks on some chillout music and it always makes me want to listen to more of him. Is there a good place to find his talks to download?
  - andrewfromx 7y ago
    his children run https://alanwatts.com/ https://alanwatts.com/ and sell them but you can also find lots on youtube like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCpFFxzkLzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCpFFxzkLzU
throwawaymath 7y ago
That was phenomenal, beautiful and intense. Wow. I hope we get more writing like that here on HN. I feel like I've been drinking the author's life from a cup. Spectating his memories right alongside him. What an engaging style of writing.
- gxqoz 7y ago
  The New Yorker regularly publishes well-written pieces, if not exactly like this.
xvector 7y ago
I cannot wait until we beat death as a species - or rather, die on our own terms rather than on nature’s.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  It's sad that we as a species waste our time & resources on bullshit such as wars, parasitic businesses like advertising, etc instead of focusing on solving the most important problem that affects us all across all races, religions and cultures: death.
  - paganel 7y ago
    Not all of us view death as the worst thing that has affected this species, not sure why we should all “fight” against this. Afaik there’s no way for this planet to hold and accordingly feed hundreds of billions of people (us, our kids, our-grand-grand-grand.....-kids, none of us dying), so what will happen in case we were given the “eternal life” curse is that we will stop having kids. I for myself would always choose the world belonging to kids/younger people instead of older people.
    - fastily 7y ago
      Not on this planet no, but the universe is a huge place. Space is the obvious next frontier.
      - bagacrap 7y ago
        Why is that more obvious than the bottom of the ocean?
        fastily 7y ago
        Would you rather live at the bottom of the ocean?
        Cougher 7y ago
lordnacho 7y ago
Wish I hadn't come across this. Now I'll have to put down my feelings in writing. After being in and out of hospital for a while my dad is now in intensive care. The doctor took me and mom to a private room today where they explained that he's so frail, if anything happens there's no point in trying to help him. No CPR, no respirator. Basically, it's going to be either this time or another time, but it's going to be like this. My main thought is that he's doing the opposite of being born. When I watched my kids get born, they were little things with no personality. As they grow more and more of them gets created. Their habits, what they like to eat, soon their friends and interests. Opinions about every little thing in the world. Now I'm seeing that deconstructed in my dad. I stopped being able to talk to him about adult stuff some time ago. Science, politics, history. His thoughts on being transplanted to the west as an adult. As he's gotten more ill recently it's degenerated into what is essentially teenager stuff: why won't he exercise to improve his heart condition? It's not like he doesn't understand what the doctors say. I might not have another conversation with him, and the last one was last night. We're beyond teenager stage now. He kept asking the same series of questions over and over. Is my heart OK? Nose? Ear? Brain? Leg? Tissemand? Yes really, he said that. The only part of his body he asked me about in Danish, not Chinese. I feel bad about being angry with him, too. He's basically not followed any medical advice since his bypass. Many family members have brought it up with him. He's just sat there for the best part of three years, doing nothing to get better. And part of me thinks I caused him to check out of life. Before he had his surgery I sat down with him, when we were both adults, and talked through what might have been the last conversation. He said he had no regrets, the world had treated him just fine, and if the end was now, that was fine. There was a peaceful resignation at that time. Perhaps having the sign off conversation made him not want to struggle back to fitness.
- 6700417 7y ago
  I would highly recommend the End of Life Guideline series: https://www.amazon.com/End-Life-Guideline-Compilation-Booklets/dp/0983784140/ref=nodl_ https://www.amazon.com/End-Life-Guideline-Compilation-Bookle... Was given these when my Dad was clearly failing to thrive and had given up. He basically stopped caring about living after my Mom died, although it wasn’t entirely clear at the time.
- 7y ago
elliotec 7y ago
What an unbelievable piece of writing. I am a very unemotional person, but this hit me right in the little target of feels I may have. The disjointedness and incohesion of the writing is an analogy to life itself in a really weirdly perfect way. Beautiful.
jackschultz 7y ago
I just read that article couple days ago. Incredibly difficult, and I get stuck wondering what it'll be like for me and make myself tear up. I highly suggest subscribing to the New Yorker. It's not cheap, I renewed my subscription gift for my sister which was $150 for the year, but there is really great writing in there, and it's fun to have something like this type of writing to look forward to coming in the mail each week.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  I also really respect the role they played in exposing Harvey Weinstein. Many people chose to stay quiet, and they didn't.
smarri 7y ago
Great piece of writing. "Life doesn’t go on. It goes nowhere except away. Death goes on. Going on is what death does for a living. The secret to surviving in the universe is to be dead."
smabie 7y ago
Beautiful writing by a man who seems to have lived exactly the kind of life all of us should aspire to: a life that encompasses the totality of the human spirit. While not always easy and most certainly chalk full of regret, the alternative is of no life at all. I firmly believe one should die thinking about what a crazy trip it’s been.

149 points by kaboro 7y ago

js2 7y ago

The author was interviewed on today's Morning Edition: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/21/790422181/peter-schjeldahl-on-the-art-of-dying https://www.npr.org/2019/12/21/790422181/peter-schjeldahl-on...

cryptozeus 7y ago

“Life doesn’t go on. It goes nowhere except away. Death goes on. Going on is what death does for a living. The secret to surviving in the universe is to be dead.”

ggm 7y ago
we're dead a lot longer than we're alive. a lot longer. we're dead longer than before we lived lasted.

bg24 7y ago

Speaking of dying, the world would be so much better if people died without pain. They would spare themselves and the closed ones from a lot of pain when the end result is obvious (death). Pain hurts. Both physically and mentally.

tamaharbor 7y ago
A family member with Stage IV cancer who can hardly move has to Uber into NYC weekly for them to 'approve' his pain medication. What are they worried about?
- JshWright 7y ago
  The system isn't flexible enough to account for the obviously correct cases. It has to be designed to combat the malicious actor (at least ostensibly... in practice it generally fails on both ends)
mrandish 7y ago
I'm not afraid of being dead but I'm worried about the experience of dying as long as we haven't fixed the broken way our laws make it so difficult for medical caregivers to use drugs for pain management.
- kls 7y ago
  It's funny I don't fear death and I don't fear the process but there are a few ways that I would not want to die. Burning to death would be high on that list as it is extremely painful to burn. I was burned fairly severely on my legs as a kid. The pains of death from old age that I have seen do not really scare me. That being said, and what I wanted to mention is that I don't fly, not because I fear death by plane crash but because I made the mistake of listing to a flight recorder one time and I developed a phobia of dying around a bunch of other people sharing that same fate. It really shook me that to die in a situation like that, it would be very hard to make your peace with death. With all the screaming and pleading going on around you. Not that I don't have empathy for those people but I have to steady myself and god forbid my family for the inevitable. I always liked the quote from Marcus Aurelius "Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back" I think of that quote a lot when I am spearfishing and there are sharks around.
  - bodka 7y ago
    so philosophical
  - askafriend 7y ago
    You don't fly? ...do you drive?
    - kls 7y ago
      Yes I understand it is irrational. It's not the fear of death, I just don't want to die with a bunch of people I do not know that cannot steady themselves.
      - smabie 7y ago
thorei 7y ago
The family dynamics get really messy with this. I have an uncle who regularly expresses to me his desire to "get put to sleep peacefully like the family dogs" rather than be terrified all the time and waiting around to choke to death (late stage Parkinson's, and everything that can be is done is being done). My response is always, "I'll be the first to make that drive with you, but not while your brother is alive." There are some types of dog owners who as the dog ages will hit point where they're no longer keeping the dog alive for the dog's sake, but for their own. It's a bit like that, except they're not in a position to make that decision for them. But they'll do it all the same.

andrewfromx 7y ago

Think of the wake of a ship slicing thru water. The very distant past you can barely see anymore. The present is very bubbly and froth with waves. After the wake is completely gone, did it even happen? The body of water is calm and smooth again, no record of this "event". See Alan Watts on cause and effect; really discrete events like birth, death or is all of nature just 1 big event?

shostack 7y ago
I've heard him in voice tracks on some chillout music and it always makes me want to listen to more of him. Is there a good place to find his talks to download?
- andrewfromx 7y ago
  his children run https://alanwatts.com/ https://alanwatts.com/ and sell them but you can also find lots on youtube like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCpFFxzkLzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCpFFxzkLzU

throwawaymath 7y ago

That was phenomenal, beautiful and intense. Wow. I hope we get more writing like that here on HN. I feel like I've been drinking the author's life from a cup. Spectating his memories right alongside him. What an engaging style of writing.

gxqoz 7y ago
The New Yorker regularly publishes well-written pieces, if not exactly like this.

xvector 7y ago

I cannot wait until we beat death as a species - or rather, die on our own terms rather than on nature’s.

Nextgrid 7y ago
It's sad that we as a species waste our time & resources on bullshit such as wars, parasitic businesses like advertising, etc instead of focusing on solving the most important problem that affects us all across all races, religions and cultures: death.
- paganel 7y ago
  Not all of us view death as the worst thing that has affected this species, not sure why we should all “fight” against this. Afaik there’s no way for this planet to hold and accordingly feed hundreds of billions of people (us, our kids, our-grand-grand-grand.....-kids, none of us dying), so what will happen in case we were given the “eternal life” curse is that we will stop having kids. I for myself would always choose the world belonging to kids/younger people instead of older people.
  - fastily 7y ago
    Not on this planet no, but the universe is a huge place. Space is the obvious next frontier.
    - bagacrap 7y ago
      Why is that more obvious than the bottom of the ocean?
      - fastily 7y ago
        Would you rather live at the bottom of the ocean?
      - Cougher 7y ago

lordnacho 7y ago

Wish I hadn't come across this. Now I'll have to put down my feelings in writing. After being in and out of hospital for a while my dad is now in intensive care. The doctor took me and mom to a private room today where they explained that he's so frail, if anything happens there's no point in trying to help him. No CPR, no respirator. Basically, it's going to be either this time or another time, but it's going to be like this. My main thought is that he's doing the opposite of being born. When I watched my kids get born, they were little things with no personality. As they grow more and more of them gets created. Their habits, what they like to eat, soon their friends and interests. Opinions about every little thing in the world. Now I'm seeing that deconstructed in my dad. I stopped being able to talk to him about adult stuff some time ago. Science, politics, history. His thoughts on being transplanted to the west as an adult. As he's gotten more ill recently it's degenerated into what is essentially teenager stuff: why won't he exercise to improve his heart condition? It's not like he doesn't understand what the doctors say. I might not have another conversation with him, and the last one was last night. We're beyond teenager stage now. He kept asking the same series of questions over and over. Is my heart OK? Nose? Ear? Brain? Leg? Tissemand? Yes really, he said that. The only part of his body he asked me about in Danish, not Chinese. I feel bad about being angry with him, too. He's basically not followed any medical advice since his bypass. Many family members have brought it up with him. He's just sat there for the best part of three years, doing nothing to get better. And part of me thinks I caused him to check out of life. Before he had his surgery I sat down with him, when we were both adults, and talked through what might have been the last conversation. He said he had no regrets, the world had treated him just fine, and if the end was now, that was fine. There was a peaceful resignation at that time. Perhaps having the sign off conversation made him not want to struggle back to fitness.

6700417 7y ago
I would highly recommend the End of Life Guideline series: https://www.amazon.com/End-Life-Guideline-Compilation-Booklets/dp/0983784140/ref=nodl_ https://www.amazon.com/End-Life-Guideline-Compilation-Bookle... Was given these when my Dad was clearly failing to thrive and had given up. He basically stopped caring about living after my Mom died, although it wasn’t entirely clear at the time.
7y ago

elliotec 7y ago

What an unbelievable piece of writing. I am a very unemotional person, but this hit me right in the little target of feels I may have. The disjointedness and incohesion of the writing is an analogy to life itself in a really weirdly perfect way. Beautiful.

jackschultz 7y ago

I just read that article couple days ago. Incredibly difficult, and I get stuck wondering what it'll be like for me and make myself tear up. I highly suggest subscribing to the New Yorker. It's not cheap, I renewed my subscription gift for my sister which was $150 for the year, but there is really great writing in there, and it's fun to have something like this type of writing to look forward to coming in the mail each week.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
I also really respect the role they played in exposing Harvey Weinstein. Many people chose to stay quiet, and they didn't.

smarri 7y ago

Great piece of writing. "Life doesn’t go on. It goes nowhere except away. Death goes on. Going on is what death does for a living. The secret to surviving in the universe is to be dead."

smabie 7y ago

Beautiful writing by a man who seems to have lived exactly the kind of life all of us should aspire to: a life that encompasses the totality of the human spirit. While not always easy and most certainly chalk full of regret, the alternative is of no life at all. I firmly believe one should die thinking about what a crazy trip it’s been.