Discussing Death Around the Globe

Mankind is raising its consciousness when it comes to death. Not only is the subject no longer taboo, it is the main topic of conversation at conferences and cafes around the globe. From Oxford, England’s Death Café, where visitors enjoy “good company, cake and a chat about death,” to New York’s Art of Dying Conference in October 2017, discussing death has become a choice.

The mid-October Big Apple event conference series “speaks to the progressive awakening of our culture to a more conscious view of our own mortality,” according to the New York Open Center, who organized the event. The three-day conference will have both holistic and traditional perspectives. “Death and dying are topics that are discussed with increasing openness and with an awareness that our view of death profoundly impacts our experience of life,” the event website states.

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For those that cannot make it to New York, the sixth-series conference will be webcast live.

As the East Coast is busy discussing death, the West Coast will be doing so as well at the End Well Project, a San Francisco Symposium to be held Dec. 7, 2017. Speakers at the event will include physicians, professors, authors and industry experts, who will openly discuss the end-of-life-experience.

The San Francisco event is organized by End Well, a group whose goal is to “engage a diverse national audience in conversation about what it means to live well until the very end” according to the website. “When inevitably faced with issues of mortality, many of us — whether patient, family or clinician—will suffer needlessly for a variety of reasons, ” the website adds. By offering the symposium, the organizers hope to “create a platform that will transform thought into-human centered action as we reimagine the end of life experience in ways that are universally available and serve the needs of the individual.”

Credit: deathcafe.com

The Death Talk Project’s manifesto makes it clear that how we discuss death could be either detrimental or dynamic. “When it comes to dying, bereavement, and remembrance—talking about it matters. How we talk about it may matter even more,” its website states.

Lastly, Death Café, makes it possible for those who want to discuss death to find a nearby location to do so, as well as offering informative and inspiring end-of-life material.

Be it a cafe, conference, or a conversation with a friend, discussing death is vital to living a healthy life. When we accept that death truly is part of life, the notion can be rather freeing rather than terribly frightening.