Ask a Mortician

Caitlin Doughty's video on Youtube called "Ask a Mortician" is about how we should prepare for our inevitable death and decay. Her reasoning as to why is that she starts off with a Mark Twain quote.  Twain makes the following statement: "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it". I agree with Twain's statement because why should we care about something that does not harm us.We did not really care about being born before we were born and we are not likely to care about not being alive after we die. The reason why it is hard to talk about our death is because as humans we are into this "being-conscious". Doughty says the best way to not fear death is think about what you want done with your dead body. The three most common ways on what to do with a dead body are conventional burial, cremation, and natural burial. A conventional burial is an embalmed body in some sort of casket in an above -ground crypt. Cremation is when the burning the dead body is burned to ashes. It is true that the we should care about what happens to us after we die.

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  1. Hanna GutalaMarch 26, 2019 at 12:29 PM

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  2. Hanna GutalaMarch 26, 2019 at 12:30 PM

    I understand why Doughty would quote Twain because it provides a good understanding as to why death isn't as bad as it is made out to be. However, I do not agree that the quote helps us not fear death because death is a different event than before birth. When you die it is the end of your life on Earth. You leave everything and everyone and that is so difficult for us to understand that it causes us to be fearful of it. Furthermore, before you are created, you are nonexistent, not dead. To die is for someone or something to stop living. So how can you stop living if you hadn't lived yet? Twain said that quote with the influence of Lucretius. Lucretius used that to also argue that the mind, body and soul are all connected therefore when you are born, your soul and mind are born as well. And as you experience life not only does your body mature, but your mind and soul also. With this thinking and relating it to Doughty; how can we care about something we haven't experienced? That is why death is completely different to before we were born, and I don't think that argument truly helps us to not fear death.

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