Living with Death: A Podcast with BJ Miller

Most of us know we are going to die. How often though do we actually let ourselves really internalize that understanding? To imagine it? To feel it? To try to accept it?

On today's podcast we invited BJ Miller back on our podcast to talk about death using as our guide his recent NY Times editorial What Is Death? How the pandemic is changing our understanding of mortality. In addition to being the author of this NY Times article, BJ is a Hospice and Palliative Care doc, and the founder of Mettle Health which aims to provide personalized, holistic consultations for any patient, caregiver or clinician who need help navigating the practical, emotional and existential issues that come with serious illness and disability.

We start off with BJ appropriately picking the song "Ebony Eyes" as our intro song, which is a good analogy to talking about death, as it was initially banned by the BBC from airplay as its lyrics were considered too upsetting to play on the radio. We then go into his thoughts on how we picture our deaths and dealing with those emotions we feel when we do, how we "live with death", and...

Also check out BJ's article that is geared towards kids/students - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/learning/how-do-you-view-death.html. As BJ put it in an email to us: "It's fascinating to me how they're taking care to reach out to younger minds, further proof that the idea that no one wants to think or talk about death - especially youngsters - is bunk.