Latest / How to Be an Adult / Memento Mori: Facing the Inevitable (Ep. 11)

Transcript

Memento Mori: Facing the Inevitable (Ep. 11) · How to Be an Adult

0:00
It's actually repression of our knowledge of our
0:03
mortality
0:04
that is at the root of what used
0:07
to be called neurosis. Life offers up and
0:09
has potential
0:11
in every moment. Death is the end of
0:14
that potential. There's nothing more more total. I
0:16
am of the view that mere quantity
0:19
is not enough.
0:21
Welcome to How to be an Adult, a
0:23
podcast created by the practitioners at the Morpheus
0:26
Clinic for hypnosis in Toronto, Canada. This is
0:29
a show for people just like you who've
0:31
inadvertently become adults and don't know what to
0:34
do about it. I'm Luke Chao. And I'm
0:37
Pascal Langdell.
0:38
And whether you're 18 or 80, this is
0:40
the trail guide to life that your parents
0:42
didn't give you when you finally reached the
0:45
age of majority. Now, we publicize these perspectives
0:48
and these ideas
0:50
in order to democratize the kind of self
0:52
assurance,
0:53
the sense of autonomy,
0:55
and, perhaps also the sense of direction as
0:58
well, that we believe will help you to
1:00
be an adult in today's world. Today, we're
1:02
gonna talk about perhaps the greatest cause of
1:05
anxiety, whether we're aware of it or not,
1:09
in most people's lives. And in prior episodes,
1:11
we've claimed that when you reach adulthood, it's
1:14
the final stage. Once an adult, you're forever
1:16
an adult. But today we are actually gonna
1:18
talk about
1:19
what is beyond adulthood
1:21
which is death.
1:24
Yeah.
1:26
So so so so So what's nice is
1:28
you say, you talk about death and then
1:29
there's this silence, right? And that in some
1:31
ways is indicative of our attitude towards it.
1:34
It's a sort of a taboo subject that
1:36
that somebody lays down the word death and
1:38
suddenly everybody goes
1:39
And there has been scholarly work done on
1:42
the subject.
1:44
Ernest Becker,
1:45
who was Canadian or at least spent part
1:47
of his life in Canada,
1:49
he wrote a book which won the Pulitzer
1:51
in, I think, 1974
1:53
called The Denial of Death.
1:55
And he
1:56
iterates upon Freud's hypothesis,
1:59
which is that repressed sexuality
2:01
is what causes neurosis or anxiety
2:04
by claiming that it's actually repression of our
2:07
knowledge of our mortality
2:09
that is at the root of what used
2:12
to be called neurosis and which we now
2:14
call anxiety
2:15
and it's a fascinating book which I read
2:18
at the start of the pandemic and it's
2:19
definitely
2:20
informed my
2:21
views
2:23
of how I might be able to best
2:25
help people deal with anxieties of elevators,
2:28
fear of flying,
2:30
fear
2:32
of the unknown, fear of even social situations
2:35
like public speaking, because it seems like once
2:38
someone is able to accept their mortality, once
2:41
they're looking at it and they're
2:43
believing in it and
2:45
they're not trying to escape from it and
2:48
they're not trying to repress it, it seems
2:50
like there's a trickle down effect to what
2:53
you might say are lower level anxieties than
2:55
the fear of death. And do you think
2:56
this is something more of a a development
2:59
from the
3:00
results of living in a modern society where
3:02
we have antibiotics,
3:03
we have incredible technological advances,
3:06
where we get to actually be scared of
3:08
elevators because they exist.
3:10
Because if I think of people 200, 300,
3:13
400 years ago,
3:14
then death was ever present. You you would
3:17
have children. You would expect not all of
3:19
them would would survive.
3:21
And your own longevity
3:23
was permanently in doubt from anything from an
3:25
infected cut to, you know. Well, part of
3:28
Becker's hypothesis
3:29
is that human beings have created
3:32
works of art
3:34
and we've created religions and monuments like the
3:37
pyramids, for example,
3:38
to manage our terror
3:41
around our knowledge of our own mortality.
3:45
So, it's not just in recent years we
3:47
have elevators. It's also in the time of
3:49
the ancient Egyptians where,
3:51
at least according to the hypothesis,
3:54
we have to imagine what's beyond this life
3:57
in order to be able to cope with
4:00
our seemingly
4:01
uniquely human
4:03
ability to comprehend death. To appreciate death. Although,
4:05
I do think possibly the Egyptians could have
4:07
done with elevators. Although, there's probably somebody out
4:09
there that will prove that they invented the
4:11
elevator in the first place. Probably.
4:15
So, I know that between you and I,
4:17
we're very familiar with the Latin term, a
4:20
memento morae. So, can you explain a little
4:22
bit about
4:23
your take on it, first of all? Well,
4:26
the term translates, I believe, to, you know,
4:30
remember death. Remember that you will die.
4:32
What it means
4:33
is that a path to more happiness and
4:36
peace
4:37
is to confront the inevitable and to accept
4:41
it as
4:42
frankly
4:43
and as quickly as you can.
4:45
In other words, if repression of our knowledge
4:48
of death and dying
4:49
causes us to
4:50
be anxious,
4:52
then acceptance
4:53
of our knowledge of death and dying is
4:55
a path to being liberated from such fears.
4:59
There are cultures other than the Greeks
5:02
who practice this kind of philosophy of remembering
5:05
death and dying.
5:07
So, in at least some Buddhist
5:10
sects
5:11
they have the practice of corpse meditation
5:14
where, you know, rather than imagining you're in
5:16
a peaceful rain forest with waterfalls and birds
5:19
you imagine your own body as putrid and
5:23
decaying
5:24
because honestly on a long enough timeline who
5:26
isn't putrid and decaying
5:29
but when you're able to meditate upon it
5:31
and then to perceive it and to imagine
5:32
it to feel it and to be at
5:34
peace with it Then who cares if the
5:36
elevator could get stuck for 5 minutes before
5:38
you're rescued?
5:40
Right? And if you you know if you
5:41
die in a plane crash
5:43
then you still should have been on the
5:44
plane so you can take your vacation because,
5:46
like, you know, most likely you wouldn't have
5:48
done in in a plane crash. I've got
5:49
a story about that, which is, I used
5:51
to do a lot of commercials. And so,
5:53
I'd fly all around the world. And I
5:54
think one of the first commercials I did
5:57
was in Nepal. It was for Bank of
5:58
Posta. And
6:00
so, what I'd do is I'd do a
6:01
job and I'd stay for longer in whatever
6:03
country I was filming in
6:05
to explore the country. And so, there I
6:06
was, I was in Nepal. I thought, right,
6:08
Everest. I always wanted to see Everest. Always
6:10
wanted to
6:12
to hike up as far as I possibly
6:13
could. So, we take an airplane, and the
6:16
first airplane's a tiny little airplane.
6:18
And before we get on, we hear that
6:20
the weather's quite choppy, should we say. It's
6:22
a lot of wind, and it's been delayed
6:23
and delayed and delayed. It's delayed for like
6:24
8 hours. I'm thinking, well, this is a
6:26
good sign. They're looking after us. That's, you
6:28
know, it's a good sign. They're not gonna
6:29
fly because it's it's too dangerous, you know.
6:31
And, then eventually we all get on the
6:33
plane,
6:34
then the engines start, and then they stop
6:36
the plane because one of the engine isn't
6:38
working. So we all get off of that
6:39
plane, I go, oh, that's good. They're all
6:40
looking after us. It's okay. And it's perfectly
6:43
safe. So let me come to the next
6:45
plane and then we set off. Right? So
6:46
I'm fine. So then we go and, we're
6:49
fine for some time and it's fine, but
6:50
then we hit some turbulence.
6:52
And I've never experienced turbulence like this before
6:55
in my life. People start crying, people are
6:57
panicking.
6:59
And at one point, the aircraft
7:01
drops very very suddenly. Mhmm. And there's a
7:04
girl at the front who I see in
7:06
zero gravity
7:07
fly up into the air. I can see
7:09
underneath her, I can see the pilot and
7:12
it was extraordinary because I looked out the
7:13
window and I could see Everest
7:15
from
7:16
the windows
7:17
glowing.
7:18
I remember thinking,
7:20
at least I got to see Everest.
7:22
I thought if I die now, that's okay.
7:25
At least it's a long held dream that
7:26
I wanted to be close close to to
7:29
to seeing Everest. And so we landed and
7:30
we came out, we, you know, kissed the
7:32
ground and it was all, you know, all
7:33
celebrations.
7:35
On the flight back, I was in an
7:37
Airbus 380 or whatever it was, on some
7:39
Swiss airline
7:40
thing, and the slightest bump, I was
7:43
like
7:45
this. Because that acquiescence that was easier in
7:48
the moment, suddenly I was alive and then
7:50
I was very very cognizant of my mortality.
7:54
Yeah. Well,
7:55
near death experiences. So I'm gonna call that
7:57
a near death experience. I don't know how
7:58
close you were to actually, you know, hitting
8:00
the ground, but let's call it a near
8:02
death experience
8:03
they kind of have a way of giving
8:04
people a whole new perspective
8:06
both on the meaning of their life as
8:10
well as the the okayness
8:12
of the fact that one day they're going
8:14
to die. Yes. And perhaps the reminder that
8:16
you are perhaps able to no longer exist
8:19
easier than perhaps you think. The closest thing
8:21
I've ever had to a near death experience
8:23
was I tried to kill myself
8:25
about 12 years ago. Yeah. I can describe
8:28
a marked difference
8:30
between me before that near death experience
8:35
and me
8:36
after the near death experience,
8:39
where every day and every year I live
8:42
these days, I very much feel like these
8:44
are extra bonus years of my life
8:47
where it doesn't matter so much if like
8:50
you know I lose money in the stock
8:52
market
8:53
it doesn't matter so much if I put
8:55
out a podcast and people hate what I've
8:57
put out on the internet
8:59
because I'm still alive.
9:02
Right? So I guess that experience for me
9:04
kind of unrepressed
9:06
my knowledge of my mortality and now I'm
9:09
on the better side of things
9:11
where if I do die tomorrow at least
9:13
it's not I'm dying at the age of
9:15
28 or whatever it was.
9:18
At least
9:19
I've I've lived my life. I've lived past,
9:22
you know, the age of Jesus and Kurt
9:24
Cobain and Joplin and Hendrix. At at least
9:26
I've done some things with my life since
9:28
then. Mhmm.
9:29
And I am gonna die one day,
9:32
but that doesn't obliviate
9:35
everything I've been doing during all the days
9:38
when I am still alive.
9:40
And perhaps also,
9:41
as you say,
9:43
you have that sense of every year being
9:45
a bonus.
9:46
Perhaps sometimes when you face
9:48
those moments, it's actually
9:51
even the smallest things can be the potential
9:53
for joy in life. I know there's somebody
9:55
who felt like they were at the end
9:56
of their road and
9:58
was contemplating
9:59
suicide. And and, they bought some tangerines from
10:02
the local store.
10:04
And they just absentmindedly
10:06
started peeling one. And he popped the the,
10:09
tandrine or satsuma oil in and the explosion
10:11
of taste woke him up. And he he
10:13
remember he said he says, I remember thinking,
10:16
well at least there's this.
10:18
And that was like the smallest and it
10:20
was the reminder that actually life
10:23
offers up and has potential
10:25
in every moment. And death is the end
10:27
of that potential. There's nothing
10:29
more total for the denial of life and
10:31
death. Obviously, it's a truism.
10:33
But just as, for instance, if you have
10:35
somebody close to you that dies, there's something
10:37
extraordinarily profound about that absence,
10:40
which is a marked difference
10:42
in quality to somebody leaving the country or
10:46
somebody who never wants to talk to you
10:47
again and ghosts you and disappears.
10:50
The knowledge of actual death is so so
10:53
profound that I think that it's equally
10:56
balanced, I think, by the offering that life
10:58
has, I suppose. I think that what you
11:00
shared is a good segue
11:03
into how then do we cope with our
11:06
knowledge of death and the profound knowledge that
11:09
once someone's gone they are gone. Period.
11:13
Most of us are gonna live enough years
11:16
that we're gonna see other people die before
11:19
us
11:19
before then we have to cope with our
11:21
own mortality. So let's start
11:24
with how do we cope with the deaths
11:26
of others.
11:28
My most recent experience
11:29
is I I have had a very beloved
11:32
cat named Robot.
11:34
Those of our listeners who have seen my
11:35
YouTube channel or TikTok channel, they've seen Robot.
11:38
He's pinned up at the top there.
11:40
And he was the sweetest animal and he
11:42
got me through the pandemic. I've had him
11:44
since he was 6 months old
11:47
and he was the most consistent
11:50
source of love and warmth in my life
11:52
for the 11 years that I had him.
11:55
And toward the end of his life, I
11:56
was taking him to the vet because there
11:58
was something wrong with him, but they never
12:00
thought it was cancer.
12:01
Christmas Day last year, he collapsed. Within a
12:04
few hours, I had to drive up to
12:05
out of town to take him to the
12:07
closest emergency vet that was taking
12:09
new patients and then boxing day I made
12:11
the decision to put him down.
12:13
And I was sobbing and the one thing
12:15
I kept thinking
12:17
was
12:18
even a cat could do it in the
12:20
sense of being such a consistent source of
12:22
warmth and love and affectionate even just seeing
12:25
me,
12:26
not judging me, not letting their own wishes
12:29
or desires for me get in the way
12:30
of seeing me, but by cat,
12:33
I believed could actually see me as I
12:35
was and not just as like a food
12:37
source or something. Yeah. Obviously, I was going
12:39
through this personal experience of having to cope
12:42
with with loss
12:44
and over the holidays.
12:47
Here's
12:48
what got me through it, and I've started
12:51
to advise my clients of this too.
12:53
It is a disservice to those we've lost
12:56
if we remember only the final page in
12:58
the story of their lives.
12:59
Right? So I I had Robot when he
13:01
was 6 months old. That that's when I
13:03
first held him in my hands.
13:04
And then I brought him into where I
13:06
was living at the time, and then I
13:08
did my best to cat proof the place,
13:09
and I had to like clean up after
13:11
him when he threw up and everything for
13:13
11 whole years.
13:15
And when I remember
13:18
the 11 years of his life where we
13:21
did that kind of thing and we had
13:23
shared memories and he was that constant presence
13:26
in my life,
13:28
then yes,
13:29
it didn't end so well.
13:31
But it would be such a disservice
13:35
to the animal
13:36
if I only just thought about
13:39
driving up to Newmarket on Christmas Day
13:42
and looking at possibly a $20,000
13:44
surgery bill to remove the tumour.
13:46
I did everything I could to place that,
13:49
not to deny it, but to place it
13:50
in the context of the entire story of
13:53
his life.
13:54
And then I remembered that whatever he thought
13:57
of me while he was still on the
13:59
planet is still valid.
14:01
Whatever
14:02
views he had when he saw me so
14:05
clearly coming back from work every day,
14:08
it's still the truth about me
14:10
even when he's no longer present. It's not
14:14
like his views of me die with him.
14:15
It's not like the reality about me that
14:17
he brought my attention to dies with him.
14:19
It's the reality about me that he brought
14:20
my attention to is still there even when
14:22
he's gone and that's the lasting impact he
14:24
made on me. Now most of us if
14:26
everything happens in the right order are gonna
14:28
mourn our parents so that they don't have
14:30
to go through the pain of having to
14:31
mourn us. Mhmm. On the decades long timeline
14:34
of having been raised by them and having
14:36
them put their values into you, having them
14:38
show you how to ride a bike and
14:39
having them show you well here's how you
14:42
cook this dish
14:43
all of this is going to outlast their
14:45
time on the planet. And none of this,
14:47
none of the memories, none of the values,
14:49
none of that dies with the person.
14:52
You know, in in my own personal life,
14:54
I know that probably I'm gonna die before
14:57
the younger people I know will, but I
14:59
hope that I will have made an impact
15:01
that outlasts me. So my mother died in
15:03
97 from from a reasonably
15:06
sudden, well, a 3 year illness.
15:08
It's funny because for years afterwards, I couldn't
15:11
really picture
15:12
what it was like before she was sick
15:14
because the period of sickness was so dominating.
15:17
Obviously, it's
15:19
for kids as well, but for anybody, it's
15:21
like the sharpest of memories.
15:23
Some of them are the most persistent even
15:25
if it's the memory of driving to the
15:27
hospital looking out the window or something.
15:30
This is what somebody else remembers. In the
15:32
Harry Potter books, bear with me.
15:34
So in the Harry Potter books, there's this
15:36
incredible bit where Harry Potter has witnessed death
15:40
at the end of the previous book.
15:41
And off he goes to school at the
15:43
beginning of the next book.
15:45
And up till that point, they've been able
15:47
to get into horseless carriages
15:50
that pull them up to the gates of
15:52
the school from the station. No horses, just
15:55
these carriages. Right? But this time when he
15:57
goes, he sees these horses, these dark black
16:00
horses and he's astonished. He's quite scared by
16:03
them. And then I think it's Luna Lovegood
16:05
turns around and says, You see them, don't
16:06
you?
16:07
And he says, What do you mean? He
16:09
says, You see the horses.
16:11
I said, Yes, I do. What are they?
16:13
I don't understand. She says, Well, because you've
16:14
seen death. And Luna had also
16:17
seen the death, I think of her mother.
16:19
And it's When I read that, I was
16:21
like, That's just so brilliant in the sense
16:23
that
16:24
those who
16:25
do lose somebody close to them, particularly when
16:27
they're young,
16:29
it it really alters your understanding of the
16:32
world because you can you can live under
16:34
the illusion. This just goes back to mentor
16:36
Moray as well. You can live under the
16:37
illusion that somehow you're gonna get away with
16:39
it. That somehow
16:41
if you just sort of go, la, la,
16:43
la, it's not gonna touch you. And yet,
16:45
it will and it does.
16:47
And as the years pass, actually, I I
16:50
remember more and more about what she was
16:51
like
16:52
in the years preceding
16:54
and when I was much younger.
16:56
And that
16:57
over time, that focus on the illness, on
17:00
the sharp pain of the illness
17:02
has dissipated somewhat.
17:04
And I feel like there are many aspects
17:06
of my personality which I still get to
17:08
thank her for
17:10
and that I am now giving to my
17:12
kids as well. To me, that's an extraordinary
17:15
legacy. And if you think about for a
17:16
moment, if you can manage to deliver those
17:19
good memories, those good perspectives, those good feelings
17:22
between one generation and the other. That means
17:25
that whatever it is good that my mom
17:27
did that I can pass on to my
17:28
kids might echo down for another
17:32
6, 7 generations.
17:34
Death is not the end of somebody in
17:36
the slightest. It's the end of the house
17:38
they were living in.
17:39
But the memories of the house don't disappear.
17:42
Well, there's a saying and I've heard it
17:44
attributed to a number of people. I think
17:46
it's Hemingway and Banksy.
17:49
The saying is that they say you die
17:51
twice,
17:52
the first time when your body perishes
17:55
and the second time when someone says your
17:57
name for the last time.
17:59
So this is why I say that someone
18:00
like Anthony Wayne Banksy
18:02
are going to outlive their physical presence.
18:05
I feel like even in the limited amount
18:07
of work that I do, like, I'm not
18:08
really, like, famous, but, like, I do believe
18:11
I've made an impact over my many years
18:13
of doing what I can do to change
18:15
people's lives.
18:16
Even if I, like, get hit by a
18:17
truck tomorrow,
18:19
I will have made a lasting impact at
18:22
least among my clientele because sometimes I was
18:25
the first person to say that your self
18:26
love is valid.
18:28
Although I can see very clearly that there's
18:30
a clear line for you,
18:32
between your
18:34
daily job
18:35
and manifesting change in other people's lives. Right?
18:37
So, it's actually quite a clear
18:40
line. For some people it's not quite so
18:41
clear.
18:42
Some people,
18:44
they don't get the
18:46
benefits of that from their work. So in
18:48
some ways I look at and think well,
18:51
yes.
18:52
And
18:53
it is also true that
18:56
those moments that you spend
18:58
with your family,
18:59
with your friends,
19:01
yes, with your coworkers,
19:03
that just as that there's infinite possibility for
19:06
turning anything into a source of joy, there
19:08
is also infinite possibility
19:11
to be mindful
19:12
and to actually
19:14
appreciate
19:16
what is and what is now because
19:18
at any point it can go.
19:21
And and that means that other people as
19:23
well. It's not just, you know, remember you
19:25
will die is the momentum mori.
19:27
But
19:28
implicit in that is that actually remember other
19:31
people will die as well. It's not that
19:32
it's remember death, I think is a better
19:35
translation of the spirit of it.
19:37
One thing I say to almost all of
19:39
my clients
19:41
is that
19:42
you are clearly
19:44
a living human being. You are among the
19:46
living.
19:47
The flip side to remember death is
19:51
that currently,
19:52
in the present day, in the material world,
19:55
you have the spark of life.
19:57
And beyond that, when you are perceiving
19:59
the full complete
20:01
extent of it, you can see that you're
20:02
a 100% alive.
20:04
Those of us who kinda slog through our
20:06
days feeling half alive are actually completely alive,
20:10
but they've gotten distracted
20:11
from parts of it. And even in this
20:13
very second, if anybody's listening to this right
20:15
now, I invite you just for a moment,
20:18
force the podcast, you don't have us yassering
20:20
away, and just take a moment to focus
20:24
on your breathing, on the sense of your
20:26
blood coursing through your veins, your heart pumping,
20:29
your lungs breathing fresh air in, and and
20:31
getting rid of the air that you don't
20:33
want, and just take a moment
20:34
to register
20:36
just how alive you are. And because this
20:38
is available at any point in your day,
20:40
and in some ways, it's another one of
20:42
those panaceas for want of a better better
20:43
word. Sometimes people feel like when they're a
20:46
100% alive, that that that they're manic, they're
20:49
deluded,
20:50
their feet are not on the ground, but
20:52
that's actually the clear perception of your current
20:54
state.
20:56
Even if feeling half alive or feeling half
20:59
dead, even if it feels like the norm,
21:01
It's not actually your your current state and
21:04
even your dog or cat can see that.
21:07
There's also an equation
21:09
that is often made about
21:11
because if you say you're intrinsically alive period,
21:13
foundational,
21:14
that's it. And then you go, Well okay,
21:17
all right. So are there occasions
21:19
when
21:20
it is apt and right
21:23
to even pursue or to wish for death?
21:26
And let me unpack this a little bit
21:27
more because that's not what I'm saying is
21:29
the case.
21:30
I'm saying that a realist or perhaps utilitarian
21:32
would say, well, okay. What if you lost
21:34
your sense of sight, smell, taste, hearing? What
21:37
if you were totally paralyzed
21:38
that you could not be part of a
21:40
social community?
21:42
People are gonna have to look after you.
21:44
Mhmm. My argument would be, there is still
21:47
life whilst you are breathing, whilst there is
21:50
life inside you. This is
21:52
the difference between you and a rock. Mhmm.
21:54
Right?
21:55
However, there's also that equally there would be
21:57
people say, Well okay, there is a point
21:59
at which it's okay to pursue death. I
22:02
mean it's not like
22:03
the stoics were particularly shy of killing themselves.
22:07
They saw it as having a role,
22:09
that discretion. So, yeah,
22:12
what do you think about the balance between
22:14
the quality of life and
22:16
its continuance, you say? Well, I definitely disagree
22:19
with the view that the more quantity of
22:22
life a person has the better it is
22:25
because we don't even treat our pet animals
22:27
like this if we have an animal that's
22:29
suffering, we want to alleviate their suffering.
22:33
And we do factor in quality of life,
22:35
not just merely quantity of life. We're talking
22:38
about our pet cat or our dog. Like,
22:39
I would have paid for robot surgery Mhmm.
22:42
Except they told me he's probably gonna die
22:44
on the operating table because it's that hard
22:46
to operate
22:47
on. So I figured that on the balance
22:50
of
22:51
probabilities let's give him a good death. So
22:54
I was there. You know, I don't know
22:55
what everyone else was thinking when they heard
22:57
me sobbing through the door. I'm sure they
22:59
heard it before, but, you know, so I
23:00
was holding this paw.
23:02
In those last moments, because I took the
23:04
time to kind of like spend another hour
23:06
or 2 with him,
23:08
there was something he gave to me at
23:10
the very end
23:11
while I was sobbing.
23:13
Right? It's like he forgot his pain for
23:16
a moment. He forgot himself, and he looked
23:19
up at me with only concern for me.
23:23
And, you know, I had to make a
23:24
decision at some point, you know, to call
23:26
the vet in to to complete the procedure.
23:28
But he was able to give me that
23:31
before he left. And that definitely has made
23:33
an impact.
23:34
You know, I did my best to kind
23:36
of, you know, hold his paw, act like
23:38
everything's alright. The vet told me that sometimes
23:41
owners leave the room.
23:43
But it's it's I think it's an underestimation
23:46
of oneself
23:48
to feel like they can't handle
23:50
their presence
23:52
at their pet's passing.
23:54
I think everyone is capable of it and
23:56
those who think they can't are underestimating
23:58
themselves.
23:59
And it is worthwhile.
24:01
Difficult emotions are not necessarily in themselves something
24:04
to be avoided,
24:06
which is why we're talking about, you know,
24:08
confronting death, looking at it, understanding it is
24:10
gonna happen. Difficult emotions are gonna come up,
24:13
but but it's when you're able to sit
24:14
with the emotions and and feel them
24:17
that you then come to the other side
24:19
of acceptance. Mhmm.
24:21
So for humans,
24:23
I am going to put forth a claim
24:25
that I think Einstein said it's tasteless to
24:27
unnecessarily prolong life.
24:29
I am of the view that mere
24:32
quantity
24:33
is not enough
24:34
and that quality of life really does matter.
24:37
That I'd rather have a lot of quality
24:39
of life than just merely a lot of
24:41
quantity of life. I know that that when
24:43
my mom got sick, there were members of
24:46
her family and people who knew her who
24:49
refused to see her
24:50
because
24:51
it it was too they
24:54
knew she was dying and they simply were
24:56
not willing to sit in that discomfort.
24:58
I remember thinking as a kid, thinking, that's
25:00
so weird.
25:02
And that's what your story just now just
25:04
put me in mind of. Right at the
25:06
very last second,
25:09
your cat provided an immense service to you
25:12
and to your
25:13
life ahead by doing that, right? And man,
25:16
it can be hard. I mean,
25:19
yeah, boy, it can be hard. But I
25:21
suppose the good death is the one that
25:25
shows
25:26
how it can be done with acquiescence
25:29
and maintaining
25:31
that relationship to the love of life and
25:34
the love of people living.
25:36
There's something in there. There's something about that.
25:39
And yes, animals do it.
25:42
I remember my grandmother used to have this
25:43
thing where she used to sort of wiggle
25:45
my finger like this when I was a
25:46
kid. She had a stroke and she was
25:48
in this awful hospital in Barnet.
25:50
And I kept I couldn't I was much
25:52
younger at that point. I couldn't
25:55
fathom what was gonna happen. I said, oh,
25:56
you're gonna get up and you'll be doing
25:57
weights weights by the end of the week
25:58
kind of thing, joking, joking, tasteless jokes and
26:00
people looking at each other for going, this
26:01
is not gonna happen.
26:03
And she reached out of her hand, she
26:04
couldn't open eyes but she just grabbed my
26:06
finger and wiggled it in this in the
26:08
probably the only thing that she could have
26:10
done
26:10
to say, yeah. I I see you. I
26:13
hear you. I'm glad you're here and, Hi.
26:15
You know? It was
26:17
And yeah, so I look at that and
26:18
think, That was a pretty good death.
26:22
I often think of this actually. I sort
26:23
of think, Well, what do you have to
26:25
do
26:27
to prepare yourself to be the kind of
26:29
person
26:30
that can
26:32
face your own sickness
26:34
and death with equanimity?
26:36
What kind of person do you need to
26:38
be to acquiesce
26:40
to that and not rage, rage against the
26:42
dying of the light? Now, Dylan Thomas's
26:44
poem is brilliant because we all feel that
26:47
almost entitled rage.
26:49
How dare life be taken away from me?
26:51
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
26:52
And yet, I would say,
26:54
no, don't.
26:56
You know, rage, rage with a passion for
26:58
life
26:59
and accept that you're gonna die.
27:02
Something else something else I advise my clients
27:04
of, and this will be true in most
27:06
of their cases, it's that if they're
27:09
25, if they're 35,
27:11
if they're 45
27:13
even,
27:15
unless they have knowledge otherwise, they don't actually
27:18
have to prepare to die tomorrow.
27:22
Now if someone's
27:23
75, if someone's 85, if they're lucky enough
27:26
to have reached that age, then they're gonna
27:28
be prepared
27:30
mentally and emotionally
27:32
to be thinking about
27:33
death possibly tomorrow.
27:36
You don't really have to
27:39
prepare
27:40
I guess
27:41
to be dead I mean, obviously, there is
27:44
memento mori. There is the corpse meditation. There
27:47
is benefit to this.
27:49
But at the same time,
27:51
I would suggest it's better preparation for tomorrow
27:54
to prepare to be living, to prepare to
27:56
live another day and to live it well
27:57
and to live it excellently.
27:59
And then if in the future you get
28:01
some diagnosis or if in the future you're
28:03
just old,
28:04
then,
28:06
you know, when you prepare for death at
28:08
that point, it's not a tragedy.
28:10
If after a long enough adventurous enough, well
28:13
lived enough life,
28:15
then you kick the bucket. Mhmm.
28:18
So to answer the question of how do
28:20
we kind of die an excellent death or
28:23
how do we face the inevitable
28:25
with dignity,
28:26
I would say that even if you don't
28:28
have an answer to how you're gonna do
28:31
it,
28:32
you're probably gonna have a long enough timeline
28:35
to figure that bit out.
28:37
I mean, if there's like no diagnosis and
28:39
you die tomorrow, you don't really have to
28:41
be prepared because it's, you know, it's it's
28:43
the truck bearing down on you or or
28:45
whatever.
28:45
Although perhaps
28:47
the answer is not to treat
28:50
death as
28:51
different in the sense that
28:54
if the answer to a fear of death
28:55
or if the answer
28:57
to who do you become
28:59
in order to face death well, in order
29:01
to do death well,
29:03
perhaps you've got to do life well. Perhaps
29:06
that's your job in fact. Is that those
29:08
same skills that you develop to do life
29:10
well, those same skills that
29:13
you use that stop you from
29:15
worrying about things that you can't control,
29:17
Stop you from holding on to baggage of
29:20
the past and therefore raging at the lost
29:23
or missed opportunities.
29:25
All those sorts of things, the things that
29:26
we have to deal with in everyday life.
29:28
And if you do those well, perhaps you'll
29:30
be better able to cope with the diagnosis
29:33
when it comes. Absolutely.
29:35
We're all gonna die anyway, right? That's a
29:37
reality. At some point at
29:40
some age, we're all gonna face the inevitable.
29:43
I mean, like, even if there's like this
29:45
immortality medication or whatever, eventually, like, global warming
29:48
is gonna kill you or the hate death
29:50
of the universe is gonna kill you. So
29:51
we're all gonna die eventually
29:53
and whether we worry about it or not,
29:57
most of us are going to reach something
30:00
resembling old age
30:02
before we die.
30:03
Which in itself, old age is gonna be
30:05
something that again, if you've equipped yourself in
30:08
life to
30:09
to acquiesce and self love and Yeah. And
30:12
all those, then you'll do getting old better
30:16
perhaps.
30:17
So, the the choice to make
30:20
is are you gonna become an old person
30:22
anyway
30:23
and you've not gone to Japan
30:26
and you've not written that book and you've
30:28
not learned how to play the ukulele
30:31
are you gonna become an old person who's
30:33
out of fear or
30:35
inhibition or anything else? You've not done all
30:37
of that or
30:38
are you gonna become old anyway
30:40
and you have done all of those things?
30:43
Because those of us who remain among the
30:44
living, we have the ability
30:47
on the whatever the timeline of our futures
30:49
are to then do the things such that
30:51
when we're facing the inevitable, it's not a
30:54
tragedy
30:55
if you've lived a full, rich, good life
30:58
and you kick the bucket anyway. Which also
31:01
goes back to a previous episode where we
31:02
discussed
31:03
values and living according
31:05
to those values. Because perhaps your values
31:07
are not to go to Japan. It could
31:09
be any of the multitude
31:11
of values that there are.
31:14
But they can also include
31:16
looking back.
31:19
Some previous generations didn't say, Yes, I managed
31:21
to bring up a family. Full stop.
31:23
Do you know what I mean?
31:25
That can be an extraordinary accomplishment in and
31:27
of itself and it may be enough for
31:29
somebody to look back on and be proud
31:30
about.
31:31
So
31:32
I suppose what I'm saying is that
31:34
if you look back and you've done things
31:37
that aligned with
31:39
your values
31:40
and you did the best you could to
31:42
live by them and make the most of
31:43
them, then that's a life well lived. And
31:45
perhaps that's
31:47
given you the skills to be able to
31:48
face death well.
31:50
While we remain among the living,
31:52
and we also know that at some point
31:54
we're gonna face the inevitable,
31:57
It is sometimes useful to make decisions through
32:00
a lens of
32:02
are you gonna regret this or not regret
32:04
this when you're on your deathbed?
32:06
Right? So there are gonna be some things
32:09
we're afraid to do
32:11
and which we're not even gonna care about
32:14
on our deathbed.
32:15
And there are gonna be some other things
32:17
where regardless of how that trip to Japan
32:20
goes, we are not gonna regret having gone
32:22
on that trip on our deathbed.
32:25
So if you kind of look at the
32:26
long timeline of your life and ultimately what's
32:29
really gonna matter,
32:31
that is a useful lens for deciding how
32:33
you're gonna live between now and that future
32:36
date.
32:37
Thank you so much for listening, and all
32:39
the way to the end. I know the
32:41
subject matter today is not as lighthearted as
32:44
some other episodes,
32:46
but lightheartedness, I would suggest,
32:48
follows from being able to handle the heavy
32:51
stuff in life.
32:53
Pascal and I are practical philosophers
32:56
in a way at the Morpheus Clinic For
32:58
Hypnosis. We're hypnotherapists,
33:00
but what we do for our clients is
33:03
we instill these kinds of views and perspectives
33:06
in them so that they could benefit from
33:08
our thought.
33:09
If you want to connect with us, go
33:11
to www.morphisclinic.com
33:14
and ask my team for a free consultation.
33:17
If you have enjoyed,
33:19
or found any of the things that we've
33:21
spoken about today have resonated with you, then
33:24
please subscribe
33:25
to us on YouTube at Morpheus Hypnosis or
33:28
anywhere you get your podcasts, Apple Podcasts or
33:31
Spotify and so on. We'll be there, and
33:33
we look forward to sharing with you our
33:36
next subject matter, which will be on
33:39
masculinity.
33:40
Healthy masculinity.
33:41
Go ahead and follow us. You'll be notified
33:43
of our next episode.