Death is the Final Frontier

Clara Hendon: In Celtic spirituality, anam cara is the belief of recognizing someone as a soul friend, reconnecting with them and helping them back home. But since this is a symposium about death, I can just go ahead and say it: helping them back home and helping them die.

When I met David Seidler, the Oscar-winning writer of The King’s Speech, I was surprised by the immediate friendship we struck. In fact, it felt much more like reconnecting with a long-lost friend.

Then I learned about the term anam cara, and I thought, “Oh, that’s what this is.” And not bad, an Oscar-winning anam cara.

So I called David, and I informed him that we were anam caras and that I would be helping him die, whenever that might be.

He reluctantly accepted my offer, and he later admitted that his greatest fear was dying alone. So together, we began to look at death, specifically how one can prepare well.

It’s no surprise, and hence the need for this symposium, that our culture doesn’t really believe in death. Birth, oh yes. We fall over ourselves preparing for birth. But death? No way.

So David and I decided to join forces and make a documentary series about death, with the very ambitious goal of changing culture.

David is our guinea pig on a journey to seek mentors to help him prepare for his own death. We have a very able partner on this journey, Boardwalk Pictures, which makes the award-winning show Chef’s Table.

It seems there is a sea change afoot. The New York Times is running major articles about death on a regular basis, and as you know, BJ Miller’s talk has had over 6.5 million views.

There are currently many television shows in development about death. Most recently, Disney Pixar’s new blockbuster, Coco, an animated family feature about the Day of the Dead, is topping the box office week after week.

To quote our friend Dr. Anthony Bossis, “I am increasingly certain it will be the artists, musicians, authors and filmmakers who will be the change agents of death.”

Here’s our teaser for The Death Project.

[Video plays]

David Seidler: A return to nature. Seeking solace.

My father died angry, grieving a life he felt wasn’t fully lived. At the last minute, because he hadn’t prepared himself, he was terrified.

It was a sad departure, disturbing to witness. I promised not to do the same to my children, nor to myself.

But now, years later, how much progress have I made?

Everywhere I go, I hear people of all ages asking the same questions. It’s the great frontier. Forget going to Mars. That’s easy. Death is the final frontier.

Various speakers: There’s going to be the largest die-off of people that’s ever been known to humanity. More people are going to be dying in the next 20 years than we’ve ever seen, just from natural causes.

We have to really start talking about it. We need to start a dialogue.

Each of us has to take responsibility for how we want to die. It’s a choice.

David Seidler: Surely the moment has come to demystify this final frontier.

Now is the time for The Death Project, six one-hour segments calling upon the leading figures of our time to step into a role that holds the potential to be the most meaningful of their lives.

Various speakers: Knowledge that I’m going to die, that creates the focus that I bring to being alive.

You can be whole. You can be healed, even though your body’s falling apart, even though you’re dying. Even though I’m dismembered, even though I’m in pieces, I can still be a whole person.

We don’t die well in America. We die with severe and substantial psychospiritual distress.

They take this medicine once, have one session, but it’s a transformative experience that is sustained and recalibrates how they die.

David Seidler: By exploring their relationship with their eventual passing, they will become your mentors and mine.

Various speakers: In a sense, acknowledging the possibility here is that I’m going to die sooner. Part of that is using death as your teacher.

In a lot of things I’ve delved into in my life, there’s a piece of it that has to do with death.

David Seidler: One journey we all must make.

From unsung heroes to death row inmates, people from all walks of life who have experience to contribute.

Various speaker: When the fear of death is put to rest, then you’re free to live.

David Seidler: If you could live forever, would you? What are we so mortally afraid of?

Why can’t we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity and decency and, God forbid, maybe even humor?

I don’t know how long I have to live, but certain it is that every year takes me closer to the end, whenever that end is.

The wonderful mystery. I mean, who could have imagined such a mystery?

Death is not the opposite of life. That’s where you’re wrong. Death is the opposite of birth.

[Video ends]

David Seidler: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and you’ve just been presented with a cascade of pictures and, therefore, a plethora of words. So really, I should just get off the stage and sit down.

Or I could try to explain what some of these pictorial words have meant to me as Clara and I have gathered them.

Everyone at this conference knows we live in a death-phobic society. Why else attend a gathering entitled End Well?

The implication is unavoidable. Millions, terrified by the unknown, horrified at the concept of their own annihilation, end badly. Perhaps that’s why nice people don’t talk about death at the dinner table.

And yet, and yet, that is changing.

Death dinners are popping up in American and European cities. In fact, when I was in the green room, there was a whole stack of death dinner pamphlets. A Jewish death dinner, which I thought was interesting. One could have guilt, angst and indigestion.

In provincial New Zealand, suddenly coffin clubs are all the rage. Truly elderly folks gather together over a nice cup of tea or a bracing ale, and they make their own personalized caskets.

They’re very clever with their hands, these Kiwis, and they are getting at ease with the inevitability of their own demise.

Suddenly, people everywhere are realizing no one gets out of here alive, so be prepared.

There’s a story that George Harrison, toward the very end, turned to his wife suddenly and said, “You know, if you wait till you’re dying to know God, there’s such a thing as waiting too long and starting too late.”

There’s another famous expression of asking the farmer, “When’s the best time to plant a tree?” Actually, the farmer was Stephen Jenkinson, and his answer was, “About 25 years ago.”

Anyway, being an impatient youth myself, I rejoice in all of this, but it’s taken too bloody long.

But it is happening.

Just 10 years ago, could you imagine that on October 7 in the year of our Lord 2017, in the city of San Francisco by the Bay, 400 or so seemingly sane souls have gathered to consider how to end well?

I very much rejoice in that.

But before I get too smug, which I have a tendency to do, what have I learned so far in this exploration?

I’ll just give a few examples.

During two days of filming with the wonderful, whimsical spirit creature by the mythical name of Ram Dass, I learned from him that my ego is not necessarily my amigo.

His new mantra, “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy,” is now my new mantra.

In a moment of brotherly love at the end, we exchanged shirts. I rejoiced in getting his signature Hawaiian aloha shirt, and he rejoiced in getting my faded blue L.L.Bean cotton sack. But we rejoiced in each other’s rejoicing.

BJ Miller was brave enough to tell me that even though he’s a world-renowned palliative care expert, he had no personal guarantee of how he would react when he’s dying.

He felt that it was possible that he too would rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I rejoiced in his doubt because it made me feel supported by a brother in my own doubt.

I rejoiced in Professor Bob Thurman’s definition of death: a sexually transmitted terminal disease. It really sums it up rather nicely.

Then there was my ill-advised DMT trip, captured on film, not released yet, of me screaming in terror, “Get me out of here! I’m not ready to die! Save me!”

A timely reminder of how far I still have to go.

Finally, I’m beginning to understand the words of the Mayan shaman Flor de Mayo.

When I asked her how she thought she might die, she said, “Oh, dying is going to be so much fun. I only do things that are fun, and if it’s not fun, I’m not going to do it.”

I embarked upon this treasure hunt with Clara, hoping to learn how to die. To my utter amazement, I think I’ve learned.

I believe that one must deal with the fear of death. To free oneself of that heavy burden, so one can stand tall and truly live.

I’ll end by quoting a world-renowned philosopher, Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings.

“It doesn’t matter how much time you have. It’s what you do with it.”

I humbly believe that’s how to die well.

Thank you.