Accept your impermanence in this bag of bones, live a fulfilled life
October 14, 2016 10:54 AM   Subscribe

D.S. Moss produces an occasional podcast, titled The Adventures of Memento Mori, subtitled a cynic's guide for learning to live by remembering to die. He talks about his ideas in an interview with the Eternal Life Fan Club (website), which can be summarized as embracing life by accepting death. There are eight episodes in the Adventures of Memento Mori so far, covering Plan on Dying, Communicating with the Dead, The Science of Immortality, Past Life Regression, Escaping Death, Thoughts in Passing, and Digital Afterlife. Remember to Die is also on Twitter and Instagram, and I am Mori on YouTube.

Episode 1: Plan on Dying -- looking at how you live while planning for who does what when you die, including a few of the myriad of funeral options and comments on what can be done with cremation ashes.

Episode 2: Communicating with the Dead -- conducting a seance and questioning why critical thinkers can embrace potential messages from the beyond.

Episode 3: The Science of Immortality -- talking with Presidential hopeful Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist party on the coffin-like Immortality Bus, and Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, who believes he will be able to live to be 150 years old through science, with a comment on Calico, the mysterious, well-funded longevity lab from Google.

Episode 4: Past Life Regression -- talking about Brian Weiss's book Many Lives, Many Masters, and looking back on D.S. Moss's past lives to find the reasons his current karma is such a mess, according to a palm reader he visits in the first part of the episode.

Episode 5: Escaping Death -- talking with Micah Garen on his experiences being kidnapped in Iraq and how this traumatic experience has changed the way his lives his life today.

Episodes 6 and 7: Thoughts in Passing, part 2 [TW: comment on remembering rape] -- talking with Claudia Biçen and hearing interviews from her project, Thoughts in Passing, where she spent two years interviewing 9 people on their deathbed about their lives while drawing a life-size portrait of each of them; set in the context of hearing about Claudia's project at You're Going To Die, "Poetry, Prose & Everything Goes," an annual death positive event in San Francisco. Bonus links: What really matters at the end of life, a TED talk by BJ Miller of Zen Hospice.

Episode 8: Digital Afterlife -- from dog tags to digital footprints, online and on your computer(s). Talking with Kate Brannen about Her secret history: I discovered my mother’s digital life after her death (The Guardian, May 8, 2016), and more on sending posthumous digital messages to your friends and family, options on various social networks, and reclaiming your name from a digital doppelgänger.
posted by filthy light thief (2 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
I powered through the series in a few days, and it's quite good. D.S. Moss covers a number of interesting topics and talks to well-informed people on various topics related to death and dying.

When I first saw the series, I was going to wait to post it until there were 10 episodes, but looking at the original publication dates, the "once every two weeks" schedule slipped pretty early on.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:23 AM on October 14, 2016


Amazing post, I will have to sift through this later. Thank you.
posted by Theta States at 1:08 PM on October 17, 2016


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