What a great article!
> Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west.
This is one of my favourite topics.
I had forgotten to bring "cowardice" to the table when thinking about death (etc) I've mostly thought of it as some kind if vague unspecified fear, thank you for injecting this word and concept into my jumble of thoughts.
I've been using "dignity" to try and make my thoughts more clear, but cowardice clearly has a place at the table too.
When thinking about suicide I have thought of that way to die as potentially needing bravery (as in being able to do something you fear).
The topic of death is dear to me me not only for personal reasons but I also think this relates to quite a few aspects of our societies and not only the obvious ones like how (if we can afford it) seem to overtreat people medically rather than give them proper palliative care and their close ones time and space to be there at this grand moment in life, that death ultimately is :)
It feels weird to use words like: bravery, cowardice, dignity and fear, they feel like from another era, possibly only a fictional era of knights, damsels and dragons.
And somehow I sense that that feeling of weirdness somehow is connected to the medicalisation of "everything" and also our longer work hours and expected increased efficiency. As if we hide and disallow the big important things in life only then will we agree to work the way we do.
But then in the other hand we can cure a lot of disease and I can type this on a tiny screen keyboard and post this to the internet, so...
I don't know, I only know that there is something wrong with death.