Tomorrow I'm running a seminar for the Year 11s at the school where I teach. Actually, it won't be at school - rather it will be at Karrakatta Cemetary. Why? I hear nobody ask.... Because we don't want our teens to drive into trees, have reckless sex and become accountants as a result of the misconception that they are impervious to death.
Yes... it sounds macabre... but that's not all - then we look at birth. The birth bit is to give them hope. We bring in a Mid Wife who's been in the job for 25 year AND SHE LETS THEM HAVE IT. No, she's very sweet and talks about.... birth.
Look, just read this stuff I've got from Alan De Botton, he puts it into perspective.
The ancient Greek Herodotus writes about an interesting custom practiced by Egyptians at their grandest social gatherings, feasts and picnics. When guests were at their most exuberant, their thoughts focused upon pleasure and power, servants would pass between the tables carrying skeletons on stretchers.
The ritual was to remind party goers vividly of their mortality
It might seem unnecessarily grim to turn our thoughts to death, but doing so might be the fastest way we have of dispelling any worries we have about status.
Nothing helps us sort out our priorities as much in life.
The effect of the thought of death can be to lead us towards what we most value and at the same time to encourage us to pay less attention to the views of other people. Other people will not after all have to do the dying for us.
The prospect of our own extinction may lead us to take more seriously what we most value in our hearts
The contemplation of death has a long history in western art. Vanitas paintings were hugely popular in the 17th century (1600s) Hung in domestic environments – studies or bedrooms
New found wealth resulted in this work – A skull and Hourglass were set in the middle of a bunch of trinkets and fun things and things of values – along with the Latin “Death always wins”
It wasn’t leave the owners depressed about the vanity of all things but rather to make them bold to find fault with specific aspects of their experience, and to urge them to attend more seriously to the virtues of love, goodness, sincerity, humility and kindness
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