I am not into “cute” anything, so it follows that I have never been attracted to tacky funeral jewelry or most ideas about what to do with a loved one’s cremated ashes. However, the high-end art site Hyperallergic featured an article this week showcasing what can be done with cremains that I think deserves a read.
“Ashes were providing such a poor user experience,” said Justin Crowe, founder of Parting Stone, a company that turns cremated remains into solidified stone-like objects.
Ellie Duke January 28, 2020
Parting Stone transforms cremated remains into solidified, stone-like remains (image courtesy of Parting Stone)
Whether you agree with euthanasia or not, I
suspect it will eventually become legal in most states. After all, one could
say our death is the only “significant” day we don’t plan. Add in our love of control
and well…
In the Aeon article below, Daniel Callcut points
out an aspect of euthanasia I had not considered: it differs from suicide in
that it is not performed by the
person but for the person.
Callcut also brings up another angle: will you be
able to afford the choice?
DEATH BY DESIGN
Aeon Article, by Daniel Callcut
One day you wake early, walk into town, and a large advertising
billboard attracts your attention. The image on the poster is mysterious but
appears to depict a ceremony in a forest. You didn’t choose to come
into this world, says the text across the middle, but you can
choose how you leave. To the bottom right of the poster is a company
name, Designer Endings, and contact details. You call the number
and confirm that what is being offered is indeed the chance to die in just the
way you would like.
The
description is fiction – there aren’t currently any designer euthanasia
organisations or companies – but it’s worth wondering why it isn’t yet fact.
Many people no longer hold the kind of religious views according to which our
time of death is not allowed to be of our choosing. There are an increasing
number of countries where physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia is
permitted in a medical context. But why think that the right to choose our
ending is given legitimacy only, if at all, on health grounds? Why don’t we
have the right to end our lives not just when we want to but to also do so in
style?
As kids we learned “we need to know” to be valued by
others. From an evolutionary perspective, the more we knew the safer we were
while wandering the plains. Between the Serengeti and the streets of New York,
however, “knowing” has become a downright pain in the neck. We seldom even
consider that we might not know what we don’t know… because “needing to know”
married “needing to be right!”
Maimonides said: “Teach thy tongue to say I don’t know
and thou shalt progress.” Hmmmm… do you smell wisdom there?
Author Austin Kleon recently wrote a short piece on this topic. I read it twice. I needed to know what it said in order to not be a pain in the neck! Enjoy!
Teach your tongue to say I don’t
know
I’ve long believed that “not-knowing” is the proper mental state for making art, but I’m starting to think it’s the proper mental state for going about life in general. (As Mike Monteiro says, “The secret to being good at anything is to approach it like a curious idiot, rather than a know-it-all genius.”)
“Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know,’” said the poet Wislawa Szymborska in her 1996 Nobel Prize lecture. She spoke of why she values “that little phrase ‘I don’t know’ so highly”:
Today I read a quote from a letter written by a man named Harry Brown. I did a quick search and was able to pull up the entire letter. I hope you enjoy the letter’s theme as much as I did.
Sometimes he stood 8 feet 2 inches tall. Sometimes he lived in a garbage can. He often cited numbers and letters of the alphabet, and for nearly a half century on “Sesame Street” he was Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, opening magic doors for children on the secrets of growing up and the gentle arts of friendship.
His name was Caroll Spinney — not that many people would know it — and he was the comfortably anonymous whole-body puppeteer who, since the 1969 inception of the public television show that has nurtured untold millions of children, had portrayed the sweet-natured, canary-yellow giant bird and the misanthropic, furry-green bellyacher in the trash can outside 123 Sesame Street.
The
article below was written in 2016 while Parker Palmer was writing for “On
Being.” It is worth rereading as we all need to be reminded about how to help
another who is suffering – no matter their age.
Children
are so often rolled over with our “wise” advice when the best experience we
could provide is to sit quietly and allow them to be heard.
The
holidays can be tough for many people – even for some who appear to “have it
all.” Make a pledge this season to give others the gift of your listening.
When my mother went into a nursing home not
long before she died, my wife and I were told that, for a modest increase in
the monthly fee, the staff would provide a few extra services to improve her
quality of life. We gladly paid, grateful that we could afford it.
