Mortality Minded

What can philosophy teach us about death?Since you could say the goal of philosophy is to help us think and communicate clearly and critically about fundamental aspects of nature and humanity, the answer seems to be—a whole lot.That’s why I’ve decided to take this philosophy of death class, offered by Yale University through its free Open Yale Courses program, and turn my education into podcast episodes we can all learn from.In this introduction episode, I break down how it will all work, and we get a front row seat to lecture one in the series taught by Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan. The series is made up of 26 lectures, each of which will get its own episode. My goal is to publish two episodes per month for the next 13 months. This is an experiment so I don’t know how it will turn out. But I’m excited to take this journey with you and see where it takes us. Ready, future philosophers? Death: Lecture one (Open Yale Courses)Death: About/Syllabus/Sessions/Survey/Buy Books (Open Yale Courses)Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licenseConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a minute to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Back in the Spring, when the first wave of Covid-19 in the U.S. hit New York City like a tsunami, there were so many deaths in a such a short period of time that the normally seamless process of transporting, burying and cremating, and memorializing the dead was upended.Funeral directors, typically poised managers of these end-of-life services, suddenly found themselves scrambling to adapt to a threefold conundrum: 1. How to dispose of the dead amid a logistical logjam2. How to support the living amid an emotional crisis in which people couldn’t be there in-person for their dying relatives and friends and couldn’t come together in-person to mourn and celebrate them after they died3. How to keep themselves, their staffs, and their families safe amid widespread shortages of personal protective equipment meant to mitigate the spread of coronarvirus, including from the recently deceasedToday’s interview is with Caroline Schrank, a funeral director in New York City who runs Down to Earth Funerals, about what she went through both professionally and personally during those uncertain and overwhelming days.As we approach the end of a year marked by a staggering amount of death, I’m highlighting this work—normally out-of-sight and under-appreciated—because it’s been critical throughout the pandemic, and it deserves greater recognition. You can reach Caroline Schrank at Down To Earth FuneralsSources: here (scroll down once you’re there) ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Whoops, I’m a few days late on this one.Or just think of it as incredibly early for Turkey Day 2021.Either way, this is an entry in my Bucket Nuggets series, which are short episodes about things like a great quote I came across, a fact I find interesting, or maybe just a weird thought I had recently.Bucket as in “kicked the bucket,” a euphemism for death. And nugget as in a small bit of knowledge or wisdom. Not bucket nuggets as in, say, an obscene amount of McDonald’s McNuggets.Speaking of food and death, though.Today I’m taking a brief look at the roots of Thanksgiving—specifically, that most people have it completely wrong, and it was deadly and otherwise brutal for indigenous people in what would become the United States of America, according to David Silverman, a history professor at George Washington University and the author of This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving.Sources: here (scroll down once you're there)ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

When Jule came home from work one day and found her partner, Trent—who had post traumatic stress disorder and was suicidal—dead at the age of 46, her world imploded. Eventually, she began blogging to help herself through the wilderness of grief and then turned that writing into a memoir, Sweet Baby Lover.Most recently, she launched Hard Times & Hope, a podcast about life’s toughest challenges and how to navigate them.For this episode of my Mortal Chat series, Jule and I dove deep into some of her hardest times—including her efforts to revive Trent, the ways in which her grief changed over the years, and how childhood trauma and suicidal thoughts shaped both Trent’s life and hers.To read and hear Jule’s work, visit JuleKucera.com, where you can find her podcast, her blog, and a link to her memoir. You can also listen to Hard Times & Hope wherever you get your podcasts.ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

This is a new type of episode I’m calling Bucket Nuggets, which are death-related tidbits about things like a great quote I came across, a fact I find interesting, or maybe just a weird thought I had recently.And I have no shortage of off-kilter thoughts so I’ll have plenty to choose from.Today I’m exploring a nugget of wisdom from Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, commonly known as Seneca. Yep, he’s achieved single-name status. He’s kind of like the Adele or Kanye of philosophy.In this excerpt from a collection of his works called Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger, and Clemency, Seneca, who was a philosopher during the Roman Imperial Period in the first century C.E., drops a truth bomb—when you stop and think about it, fearing death doesn’t make much sense at all.Sources: here (scroll down once you're there)ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

We’ve just finished an incredibly contentious presidential election in the U.S.* so it’s the perfect time to look at one of the most important aspects of politics: advertising. Political ads urge us to vote one way or another, of course. But an intriguing area of social psychology called terror management theory argues that a primal, hidden force is often at work in these messages—mortality reminders that trigger our emotions, particularly our primitive, unconscious fear of death. In this episode—part of my End Points series in which I explore different end-of-life topics intersecting with culture, science, and more—I break down terror management theory and its argument about political ads, including ones aired this year by both President-elect Biden and President Trump. And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.Sources: here (scroll down once you’re there)*Notwithstanding the efforts of President Trump and other Republicans to challenge the results.ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to share this episode, rate the podcast, or leave a comment. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and everything that follows from it by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

“When you really feel it (your own mortality), it’s a visceral feeling…it’s like a punch in the face or a punch in the chest. It kind of just wakes you up.”Richie is a musician and soon-to-be recovery coach for substance abusers from Brooklyn, New York. I spoke with him for my Mortal Chats series of wide-ranging conversations about mortality and its corollaries with people of all stripes.Richie and I dig into the vehicular roots of his growing mortality awareness, his acceptance of the pandemic as a normal feature of existence, why he doesn’t feel especially mortality minded even though he’s a Black man in America, and other topics—including the ninja-like critter he’d want to return to life as if he were reincarnated. And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.Topics, et cetera, discussed in this episode include:Covid-19/coronavirus pandemicFight ClubMeaning and purposeMortality awareness Obituary headlinesRace and racismReincarnationSquirrelsThe Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

In this episode—part of my End Points series, a mix of end-of-life topics intersecting with culture, science, and more—I explore: Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday honoring ancestors and celebrating death as a natural part of life that takes place every year on the first two or three days of November. I wanted to learn more about this increasingly popular holiday, so I looked into why it’s becoming more widely celebrated, how it works, and what inspired its start.My latest fascination—tardigrades, which are microscopic, 8-legged animals with a penchant for surviving under conditions that cause most other organisms to say bye-bye to life.And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.Sources: here (scroll down once you’re there)ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Tara Sroka helps people create online memorials, manage their digital legacies, and more through her end-of-life planning service, Bringing Death Into Life.I spoke with Tara about why she feels called to this work—especially her launch of virtual funeral offerings amid the Covid-19 pandemic—other ways technology is changing how we mourn and honor our dead, and the downside of immortality. To learn more about Tara and end-of-life planning, connect with her on Bringing Death Into Life and @BringingDeathIntoLife on Instagram and Facebook.And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Are vaccines a life-saving technology contributing to an unintended consequence of innovations that ultimately make us more anxious about death? (Spoiler: Probably.)Are we headed to an afterlife or a void after we die? (Spoiler: Stop being so binary.)If there is an afterlife and it turns out our bio-less selves can travel freely through spacetime, I am definitely checking out some dinosaurs and doing belly flops into black holes. (Minus the belly because I wouldn’t have a body, but you get my drift.)Ideas, et cetera, mentioned in this episode—part of my End Points series, a mix of end-of-life topics intersecting with culture, science, and more—include:Agnosticism/atheism and religionAnti-vaxxers, public health, and vaccination/variolationBlack holes, dark energy/dark matter, and string theoryCoronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic, flu season, and smallpox eradicationDeath anxiety and mortality awarenessAnd, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.Sources: here (scroll down once you're there)ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Jak Ruiz is a Brooklyn-based artist focusing on abstract and expressionist paintings. I spoke with him as part of my Mortal Chats series, a collection of wide-ranging conversations with people of all stripes about mortality and its corollaries: dying, death, grief, and the possibility of an afterlife.Jak and I had an interesting chat about a plethora of topics under this umbrella, including how his mortality awareness catalyzes his creativity, the significant role suicide has played in his life, and his intergalactic travel plans if there's life after death. You can see his artwork and connect with him @jakruiz_art on Instagram. And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.Some things and people mentioned in this episode:Agnosticism/atheism, Catholicism, hellAlternate Endings: Six New Ways To Die In America documentary (HBO)Andre the Giant, BeetlejuiceConsciousnessCreativityCremation, green burial Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY; Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, FranceJean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness; No Exit Kali, the Hindu goddess of deathPhysician-assisted dying, suicideConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Suicide is a leading cause of death and major public health problem in the United States.Its consequences often go well beyond the person who acts to take their own life: it can have a lasting effect on family, friends, and communities.Since September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month here in the U.S., it’s a good time to shed light on this topic, which can be especially difficult for many people to talk about.In this episode—part of my End Points series, a mix of end-of-life topics intersecting with culture, science, and more—I speak to some surprising stats about suicide and what’s behind the numbers. Then I dive into risk factors, warning signs, ways to help, and additional resources you may find interesting and useful.And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.Sources and other resources: here (scroll down once you're there) ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Catharine DeLong is a music thanatologist—thanatology is the interdisciplinary study of dying, death, and grief—who plays the harp and sings for hospice patients as they approach the end of life.She's also the facilitator of the Integrative Thanatology Certificate Program, which I completed last year, at The Open Center in New York City.In this episode, I speak with Catharine about her compassionate and compelling work at the bedside of people who are dying, including her visit with my grandmother just hours before she died last year. You can connect with her at DeLong Harp or by email.And, as usual, I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

Episode one of Mortality Minded is here!Find out how the podcast will work, what it means to be mortality minded, and why we generally have so much trouble thinking and talking about the end of life—yet how that’s been slowly changing in recent years. You’ll also get to know me, Thomas Gaudio, and how I became interested in a subject most people avoid.Below are links to some things and people I mention in this episode:Books:The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo TolstoyThe American Way of Death by Jessica MitfordStiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary RoachMan’s Search For Meaning by Viktor FranklOn The Shortness of Life by SenecaOther:Catharine DeLong, music thanatologistDeath CafeEndwellIntegrative Thanatology Certificate ProgramReimagine End of LifeTerror management theoryAnd I share my daily mortality mantras with you. I say both to myself every morning, usually during the ice cold shower I take shortly after getting out of bed to help wake my groggy ass up and start the day off right. I hope they help you as much as they help me.ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)

A preview of Mortality Minded, a podcast that explores life, death, and whatever's next through culture, science, personal growth, and more to shed light on this universal yet deeply personal subject. Hosted by Thomas Gaudio, whose endless mortal curiosity as a writer, journalist, and student of thanatology—the interdisciplinary study of the end of life—has led him here.ConnectEnjoying Mortality Minded? Please take a moment to rate the podcast and share this episode. It would be helpful and much appreciated as I continue working to turn my vision into reality.You can join me in exploring mortality and its corollaries by subscribing to Mortality Minded wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes and other content are also available on Mortality Minded.If social media's your thing, I’m @MortalityMinded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Or if you prefer to kick it old school, email me at connect@mortalityminded.comThanks for listening. Until next time, stay mortality minded.(Music: Brass Beat by Blake © 2011 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)