I'm specifically reminded of Bender's 'living funeral' from Futurama. Who knows, maybe people got this idea in the first place by watching these shows.
Yeah that's what came to mind as well. I've now lived long enough to see what was once a caricature of outlandish selfishness becoming something people want to emulate.
"We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." --"The Screwtape Letters"
Wouldn't it be nice to hear all the lovely things friends and family might say about us at our funeral?
No, you weirdo Guardian journalists, it would not. Because I'm not dead. And when my funeral does happen, I may be the theme, but it will not really be about me. It'll be about the living getting together and comforting one another. Or about whatever they want. Because I'll be dead.
What kind of a maniacal ego maniac asks everyone close to them to all gather together and talk about how wonderful they are so they can watch?
I've never been to a birthday party where the birthday boy/girl gathers people to do that. What's the point in subtracting value from a conversation with this distraction?
Does everything need to be a celebration? Birthdays, weddings, baby showers, wedding-birthdays, stag do,... That's already plenty of opportunities for a narcissist to hear compliments from their friends in public.
> What kind of a maniacal ego maniac asks everyone close to them to all gather together and talk about how wonderful they are so they can watch?
I don't know--this seems pretty consistent with our society's growing self-absorption and narcissism. A living funeral falls squarely within today's "I Am The Main Character" vibe.
A random event someone organizes for themselves? Yeah, weird. But did you skip the part where this is for terminal ill people to gather family and say their goodbyes?
> I had a catheter and was on morphine, but I was determined to have a good time. At one point, I decided to go on the biggest slide. When I got to the bottom, there were about 70 people clapping for me. Somebody had shouted: “Rob’s going down the death slide!” and everyone came out to watch.
Nightmarish.
These people think they're so special for being terminally ill. Don't they know that happens to everyone? There's nothing more banal than getting cancer.
People can choose to celebrate life and death however they choose, among people whom care about them, and whom they care about, free of judgement from any random person on Hacker News.
My thesis advisor had a Festschrift conference at an odd-numbered age and when I attended I found he had a terminal diagnosis of brain cancer. It was great to bring together his students and colleagues to celebrate his life and work.
Good idea and should be normalized. Sometimes unexpected passings are in retrospect, not that unexpected. A colleague passed from routine surgery, at least colleague was very good at reassuring procedure was routine even though back of my mind suggested nature was anything but. Found out success rate was >90% but that was still a dice throw from failure and I kind of wanted colleague to throw a just in case final get together party but didn't know how to articulate that morbid thought into words during a stressful time. Anyway, colleague's passing left a lot of people shocked and took while to process especailly since the entire funeral had to be rushed.
Well, I think this would pair well with assisted suicide.
(where legal of course>)
You have the living funeral.
You can even have the coffin and all of that.
Once it is over.
The person has an induced complete metabolic failure.
The person is quickly placed into the coffin.
The procession for the burial can commence.
Give or take an hour it's pretty much the same as a real funeral.
I think people who are using "literally" as emphasis instead of really meaning "in a literal sense" are criticized too much. It's just how language evolves.
But saying "literally by definition" for something that has nothing to do with the definition doesn't feel like emphasis, it feels like lying.
When my mother died, I really needed the funeral. It really helped with the grieving process.
I think my mother would have appreciated something like this when she had cancer. Sadly, she was in denial about her state of health and only admitted to herself that she was dying when she only had a week left.
But, these things don't have to be called "Living Funerals." We would have had a larger 50th anniversary party for my parents, (about a year after her diagnosis,) if we'd been a bit further out of Covid.
I attended a living wake several years ago. At first, I thought the idea was odd and morbid, but I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. Just a bunch of friends and family gathered to swap stories one last time. Really fun and positive atmosphere. It made the funeral (a few weeks later) much easier.
On a side note, I wished award shows understood how important the "In Memorium" is to the viewers. It's our last chance to remember actors and performers we love and think about the times they passed through our life. It's also a free commercial for the industries back catalog. But every year it gets shorter and more insulting.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadNo, you weirdo Guardian journalists, it would not. Because I'm not dead. And when my funeral does happen, I may be the theme, but it will not really be about me. It'll be about the living getting together and comforting one another. Or about whatever they want. Because I'll be dead.
What kind of a maniacal ego maniac asks everyone close to them to all gather together and talk about how wonderful they are so they can watch?
This, as currently worded, is a criticism of birthday parties as well
If you knew for a fact you were gonna die tomorrow, would you still go into work?
Call it a celebration of life instead of a funeral
Nothing like a good ad hominem to try to make a point, eh?
I don't know--this seems pretty consistent with our society's growing self-absorption and narcissism. A living funeral falls squarely within today's "I Am The Main Character" vibe.
That's a very western phenomenon, though. Maybe even very American...
Nightmarish.
These people think they're so special for being terminally ill. Don't they know that happens to everyone? There's nothing more banal than getting cancer.
And I can write annoying comments like this one!
Oh wait, we're doing a different thing...
"" Oh Emelie has having another funeral. I get to write a new speech How fun. ""
You have the living funeral. You can even have the coffin and all of that.
Once it is over. The person has an induced complete metabolic failure. The person is quickly placed into the coffin. The procession for the burial can commence.
Give or take an hour it's pretty much the same as a real funeral.
But saying "literally by definition" for something that has nothing to do with the definition doesn't feel like emphasis, it feels like lying.
Sounds pretty literal to me. Not letting a suffering person die.
What better way to say goodbye to friends and family?
I think my mother would have appreciated something like this when she had cancer. Sadly, she was in denial about her state of health and only admitted to herself that she was dying when she only had a week left.
But, these things don't have to be called "Living Funerals." We would have had a larger 50th anniversary party for my parents, (about a year after her diagnosis,) if we'd been a bit further out of Covid.
This trend of living “funerals” seems a symptom of a horribly messed up culture.