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Reasons
It isn’t macabre or nihilistic to think of death. It’s the start of a proper, braver engagement with the possibilities of life. For centuries, artists produced ‘memento mori’, works of art that would remind their viewers of death and usually featured a skull, flower and an hourglass. The point of these works wasn’t to make…
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Seneca
Today, let me introduce you to Lucius Annaeus Seneca, better known as Seneca the Younger, or just plain Seneca. He is remembered as the advisor to the Roman Emperor Nero, an author, philosopher, politician, playwright and speaker, living at the same time as Jesus Christ. For Stoics he is most celebrated for his works “De…
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What Really Matters
Using empathy and a clear-eyed view of memento mori, BJ Miller shines a light on an area that mostly ignored in modern healthcare: preparing for death. At the end of our lives, what do we most wish for? For many, it’s simply comfort, respect, love. BJ Miller is a hospice and palliative medicine physician who…
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Lessons from the Death Zone
How do we approach death whilst embracing life? Philip Gould shares his thoughts and insights as he confronts his impending death from oesophageal cancer in this short, 8min youtube film called “When I Die”. This intimate portrait reveals his quest to find purpose and meaning in what he called “The Death Zone”. He had been…