Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 753: 30 Dying people explain what really matters

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

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This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Recording live from Gloriole Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad.

It's skeptical, it's's political and there is no welcome at today is long form day cecil yeah and we're going to talk about the cheery cheery subject this is like our big emo day yeah actually we're going we're going hard tom in the paint tom and i if you're not watching this, we put on black eyeliner. So this is an interesting article. This is from The Guardian. The title of the article is, My Life Will Be So Short, So In The Days I Can, I Really Live. 30 Dying People Explain What Really Matters. So it's exactly what it sounds like. It's 30 little excerpts of people and kind of what their, I don't know, what their sort of thought process is having been diagnosed with terminal illness and kind of how it's affected their perspective on life. And so I've read this article by now, if you're listening to this. Patrons can hear me read the article.

It also includes kind of what their diagnosis is. So it has their name and what they were diagnosed with and then you know again their perspective lots of times how they found out which normally times is really tragic

and sad one of these people found out they just went to like a normal like checkup and then they collapsed during their checkup

and then they were found to have some terminal illness I don't remember which one another guy was like yeah I had a little numbness in my leg and then immediately found out I had like terminal cancer.

It's just insane. Just crazy. Someone said they started smelling something weird and had like giant brain tumors. I mean, it's one of these articles that you read and you just keep thinking, you're like, man, I feel so lucky that I'm not in this situation

because the situations that they're in are dire. I mean, they're going to die. Yeah. And when, you know And there is also, too, several of these people, and I think we should spend a little time on this, is several of these people, when you hear it, while it's tragic that they're going through this very difficult time, they are talking about things that they're doing

that seem incredibly privileged. Yeah. And so there is a feeling in this, specifically like a couple of these people talk about being doctors. Like I was a doctor for many years and that was my career. But now, and I want to read some of the stuff that this person did. She says, I have a YOLO list of things I want to experience in life. My husband and my family work hard to ensure I get as many as possible. They've taken me snorkeling in the Maldives, hot air ballooning over Cappadocia and snowmobiling in Iceland. We've stayed in a cave hotel, seen pyramids, the Coliseum, flown a helicopter over New York. I've hand-fed tigers, taken the Rocky Mountain near trail and been paragliding and seen tulip fields in Holland. So clearly somebody who has a lot of

means that can make their last few years of life be very eventful, full of things that are, you know, on a bucket list sort of thing. And, you know, I couldn't help but think of somebody who doesn't have these means, you know, what happens when somebody, you know, would love to do any one of these things and couldn't do a single thing, but they're still going to die of cancer as well. And that's probably most people. Yeah. It's probably most people. I will say, you know, when I was reading this, there's a couple of these that come off like this and I'm very happy. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for this person. No shade on that person. And I also recognize too that when you compress your life down to a smaller amount of time

and you're not thinking about the longevity of your life, I think your finances change pretty dramatically. Yeah, so let's talk. So in this case, one of the things I thought was interesting about this exact one that you just brought up is that it's not just her that's making this happen, but it sounds like it's her whole family.

It's rallying around to make this happen. And one of the things that's a through line, there's several through lines that I think are really worth talking about through this. But one of the through lines here is how people's families interact with the moment of impending death or the news for impending death. And in this person's case, they were very lucky to have a family that it sounds like is working really hard to make these things possible for them, right? So maybe all of these experiences would be out of the realm of possibility for any one person. But maybe if everybody's sort of rallying around, you got a great big family and you kind of go fund me the rest, the end of your life through your family, it's maybe more possible, right? It could be, absolutely, yeah.

So, but I did think in a lot of these, you know, there were several people who were like, holy shit, I'm young and I have young kids and I'm not going to live to see them grow up. And they had to contend with how are they going to continue to have some kind of influence on their kids and make sure that they still have kind of a legacy felt with their kids.

So they were saying like, some people wrote out like years worth of birthday cards. I think that's so adorable. Yeah. I felt like it's adorable, but also I feel like, and maybe this is shitty of me. I feel like it's kind of mean almost.

You think? Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to be very wrong about this, but if you got young kids and these people, like in this case, the kids were young,

I think every year getting a card from your deceased mom or dad or whatever it is might make it harder to sort of let that go. Oh, I see what you're saying. And move on. It seems like I still want to have a connection with you, but you're not going to. You're gone. I wonder too, though, like if I were going through my mom's stuff and I came across a letter she didn't send to me, I would be ecstatic. Yeah, you would. Yeah. I know send to me, I would be ecstatic. Yeah, you would. Yeah, I know.

And again, I could be wrong. So I feel like, I feel like, but part of me is like, yeah, but if you're a little kid, you can forget. If it was my dad, it would be a bill.

And so I don't want that. But my mom would be amazing. But I guess what I mean is like, you lived your life with your mom into adulthood. Yeah. And so there's no way where you're right. I don't know what it would be

like as a kid. But I think back to my and I could be dead ass wrong, but I thought about this and I was like, man, that's a tough one because I don't have a lot of memories from when I was six or seven. I have one or two. Do you remember the movie with Michael Keaton who was like recording a bunch of shit

for his kid? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I forget what the movie was. I don't remember what you're talking about. Yeah. I think maybe that his kid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. I forget what the movie was. I don't remember either, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah. I think maybe that is it. Yeah. Yeah. And he was doing like a whole, like a whole like video journal of his life.

I think that's a great idea. Well, is it a great idea in comparison to getting a letter? I mean. I feel like getting one every year. So like if you, let's say, here's the difference for me. Maybe I'm being an asshole. Yeah. You don't know.

It's time. You cannot like stuff. It's okay. But the difference for me maybe I'm being an asshole yeah you don't know Tom you cannot like stuff it's okay but I feel like it's so sweet yeah that for me to pick on it feels like a dickhead thing but I also recognize too

that like kids have to develop and if you are impinging on that through your cuteness then the cuteness kind of goes out of the way yeah and like so if I let's say record a video

and that video gets you know then I give that video to my wife and she's got that video. And as the kids grow up at some point, if they want to watch the videos, they can. And then as they become adults, they can own that video and it's theirs. They can choose to watch it on their time schedule. Right. But then I'm thinking about like, well, what if I had a birthday card and every year there's a birthday card. I have 20, in this case, they wrote like 20 some birthday cards for their kid. Well, every year on my birthday, I've got to remember my dead mom, whether I want to or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is my day to celebrate with my friends and family that are here. I don't have very many memories from when I was six. I have, and this is an interesting, no, this is different because it's an uncle, but like I had an uncle reach out to me on Facebook. Somebody that like, evidently, I was close to when I was up

until the age of about six. I have no fucking idea who he is or what he looked like. I have no memories of this guy. I know that he lived in my house for three years. I don't fucking remember that guy. Because like little kids don't form a whole lot of memories that stick for a long time. That stuff sort of fades with age. So I sort of feel like, hey man, like

if you gave me all those letters, I'd be like, I will absolutely give these to the kids. And then I would save them up. And when that kid was an adult, I'd be like, here's all the birthday cards they wrote to you. I didn't want to spoil all of your birthdays when you're nine years old. I don't think that was a bit, I don't know, I mean, do you know what I mean? Yeah, the thing I'm struggling with clearly is I'm not a parent. Right. So I don't know what it's like

to, you know, do that. The only ideas I have of parenting are like fantasy ideas, right? Because I don't know

what the nitty gritty of parenting feels like. Right. So I don't know what it's like to have an unconsolable kid because they miss their dad on, I don't know. Yeah, I don't either. But also, you know what it's like to have an unconsolable kid because they miss their dad on, I don't know.

Yeah, I don't either. But also, you know what it's like to have a kid who's going through a difficult time. I mean, that's something you can easily, I don't, right? The worst time a kid can have, I'd be like, your mom needs you right now. Like that's the worst time I'd be like, yeah, my kid, I don't care. Those noises mean a parent should show up. I don't know. I don't know what, when it comes to that, I don't know. It struck me as cute and sweet as an adult,

but you're right. I'm looking at it as an adult. I'm not looking at it as a kid who's growing, trying to grow away from their, grow up and maybe not forget their parent, but at the same time, try not to have that as something that's hanging over their head their entire life.

Some sort of Paul that they're constantly reminded of. Because my thought is, is that that parent wouldn't want that. Yeah, I know. They wouldn't want that kid to be sad every year. No, I think very well, yeah. I think that there's a, I think there's like this conflict of needs

that seems evident in some of this too, where you as the person dying want to sort of control and influence how you're remembered and thought about and continue to make some kind of an emotional impact so that these people that you love now still feel loved when you're not there to do it. Yeah.

And I think that that is a genuinely wonderful human impulse that we all hopefully have. And then I think that that has to be sort of, if that's your impulse, the other sort of flip side of that is you have to think, okay, if that's what I want, what's the kindest way to do that? And one of the things that we, I think I recognize is after I die, people will grieve and then they will move on. That's what I think too. Yeah. Move on.

Yeah. And so the kindest thing that I can do is to let them know that I loved them while I was here and to do everything I can to help them move on without these sort of like, because I've known people that have these sort of like constant reminders of the deceased. And it's like, all right, people are not moving on. There was a fellow, a young fellow who died around us when we were all hanging out in another group. Yeah, I remember this. And his wife really held a candle for him forever. Forever, forever.

And she was very young. She was in her late 20s, early 30s when he died. So she was a friend, not really my friend friend but a friend of a friend right who i knew of and and they were in this group that i kind of like was secondary to i was ancillary to but knew of and she didn't remarry she didn't she's you know very much like uh the guy on goodwill, who's like, my wife's dead. You know, Robin Williams, who's like, my wife's dead. And he says, what are you going to go find somebody else? It's like, my wife's dead. I told you she's, so you know what I mean? Like, like, this is, this is my life now. Yeah. Right. You know? And it's, and, and I think too, you know,

I know both Sarah and I, like, we would not want the other to constantly be thinking about the one that's gone. We would be like, move on with your life. Yes, we had great times. Remember those and cherish those. But that's over. That part of your life is over now. And you've got to be okay with that.

There's got to be a new part of your life. There's got to be a new... Because if there's not, how many people do you hear kick off after their husband or wife dies after they've been together forever? Yeah, happens all the time. That happens all the time. Five weeks to six months after, they pass away. We literally did a citation needed this last week on a guy who died five or four weeks after his wife died, and he really wasn't even that close to her.

But that's something that happens all the time, and that's something I certainly even that close to her. But, but we, you know, that's something that happens all the time. And that's something I certainly wouldn't want to see. I would want, I would want my wife to flourish after I die. And I know she would want the same thing. Right. So, but, but I think there is a, there is a balance that a lot of these people have to have because they are for a while before they die, the most important thing in that family solar system. Yeah, right. Because every second can be their last, right? And so they're dying. And so in that family structure, everything is focused on them. And so there's a lot of attention on them. And then

they go, and now the attention has to be in different places. And that, that could be, you know, as much of a, of a, I think, I don't want to use the word blessing, um, as much of a gift as that could be to, to know that someone's passing and to spend, to be able to intentionally change your life, to spend that time and change your life to make sure they're as happy as possible until they die, the transition away from that seems like it would be really difficult too. Yeah, I think so. Because I think what we pay attention to is the same as, or can be often confused with, our purpose. And so if we have spent all of this time leading up to the moment of them dying, paying strict and constant attention to this person

because they just got diagnosed with some horrible thing and their time is short and it's the right thing to do to devote all of your time and attention to this short span of time, I can see how you would feel like purposeless, like two voids at once, right? The void of the missing person and then the void of, well, I don't know how to spend my time or what to live for right now because I've been working the last two years, say, on paying all of my time and pouring all of my energy and attention into this project, right? This project of help my loved one die, you know? And so I could see two voids opening, both at the same time.

At the same time. How tough would that be? It would be difficult. It strikes me that it's not dissimilar. It's different, but it's not dissimilar to the void you often hear people express when they have been workaholics their whole lives, then they retire. Or people who are empty nesters.

Yeah, where their whole lives have been based around their kids. And it's the thing that they've spent, you know, all their time and energy towards. So it's their purpose. And then their kids move out and they don't know what their purpose is. It's how I feel when I finish a video game.

Really? Man, it's just like, video game's over. Now I had all that fun and now it's- Yeah, I know you're being silly, but have you ever been sad that a book you're reading is over? Absolutely, absolutely.

There's been, there was a couple of series that I went through that I was like, I was like listening to the last bit of it and kind of a little maudlin because you're like, oh, this is such a good series and I'll never get to experience this again the same way.

I posted something the other day and this is a tiny fractional micro example, but it's still the same concept. Like I have had meals that were so good that like I start eating it and I'm like, I don't want to keep eating this because then I'll have eaten it and then it will be gone and this pleasure will be over. And I can see that concept

sort of playing out on a, just a wildly more emotionally grand scale. Much more emotionally. But like the same kind of idea, you know, same sort of impetus. Yeah. I'm thinking my dad, video games, but yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. Your dad, video games. Yeah, video games. A nice meal. Nice meal. A nice meal. S tier. S tier is meal. A tier. My dad's like a low B tier. So there were some through, there were some other through lines that I want to talk through. One of these, I'm going to use the wrong word and I'm just going to ask our listeners to forgive me, I'm going to use the wrong word, and I'm just going to ask our listeners to forgive me. But there is a sort of privilege also in finding out that you're going to die with a timeline attached to it that gives you an opportunity, a dark opportunity, a macabre opportunity,

but an opportunity nonetheless to plan your own death. I don't know that everybody gets that, right? So a lot of people just die. Well, I think, I do think everybody gets it, but I think most of us kick the can down the road. Yeah, we're constantly kicking the can because I'm dying right now, right? Everybody's dying right now.

Everybody who's listening is dying right now. In a very real non-Sartre sense even, right? Like we are all dying. Absolutely. We are all dying every second. You died a little more just that second. I felt it, believe me. But everybody pushes that out of their mind

for the next day. Whereas if there is clearly an end point that someone says, look, you have a bunch of tumors on your body in bad places. There was some person, one poor person had to get half their internal organs on half of the body taken out. And I was just like, how does that even work? I don't even know, man.

I don't even know. But in any case, this poor person had this, like you have these awful things happen to you. And then they say, look, you have 18 months or whatever. And the doctors, some people were wrong. I mean, there was one person who said I had 18 months. This is the best nine years of my life. Right. I read that same thing. So sometimes they're wrong, but I'll tell you what, how amazing is it that they spent those nine years loving every minute because they thought it was the last, right? When I say there's a certain kind of privilege, and I know that's not exactly the right word, I just can't think of a better one. So I'm sorry. But what I mean by that is that the sorts of responsible long-term longevity and future planning things that we spend our time and energy doing, right? So like I got up this morning

and I worked out to take care of my body because I hope this thing lasts another 45 years. And I want to be able to be functional in my old age. lasts another 45 years. And I want to be able to be functional into my old age. Yeah. And then I, you know, I forewent certain like foods and meals and things that wouldn't be good for me.

Because again, same thing. I'm trying to take care of my body on this longer timescale. And then I make financial decisions that, you know, oh, I'm not going to do this because it costs too much. I don't have the money right now. And I'd rather do this rather than that.

So we're making all these future planning decisions. Well, like you said, when you condense the timescale of your life to 18 to 24 months, all of a sudden, there's no reason to wake up and try to hit a bench press PR. You know what I mean?

That's a step. Unless I just felt like that gave me purpose, right? There would be no reason to like wake up and like, you know, not have that delicious, not have ice cream for breakfast if I felt like eating ice cream for breakfast. That would make all the sense in the world to do those things.

So they talk a lot in this, about this perspective shift, this grand sort of perspective shift. And one of the ideas they all say is like, I don't have to give a damn what anybody thinks anymore. And it's very freeing. There's a sense of like real psychological freeing that comes from knowing that they're going to pass and that their time is short. And I think like there's some lessons to be learned there for those of us who have

a less defined outward timeline. But it's not a one-to-one like equal sign, man. It's not like Tuesdays with Maury where I'm just like, I'll just live my life like every day were the last. Like if you were to do that, you'd be drowning in debt. You'll have nothing in your 401k. You can't do that. And you'll, you know, blow out your fucking liver drinking or whatever. You can't do that. You can't do it. That's an, it's an impossible way for someone who is looking at death as a decades away thing. Right.

That's not something you can feasibly do. You can't live your life. Because if I were going to do that, like if I found that out, the first thing I would do is be like, I'm going to start traveling as much as possible. I'm going to break out every ounce of cash that I have in my life.

Right. Sell the things I don't need, get as much liquid capital as possible, charge up a bunch of credit cards and go have a great time. And then I would be gone and that would be it. Right. But if I look down the road, if I were to do that and I, and I still had decades long to live, I'm going to make myself destitute for a few things that happen right now. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't prioritize things in your life differently

based on the fact that you are definitely going to die and that's going to happen. And you should be approaching time in a way that makes you realize that it's precious, right? There's so often in our life, we don't pay attention to time and we don't think it's precious. It's precious all the time. It's precious your whole life. You don't pay as much attention to it when you're young, but it's precious your whole life. And being thoughtful about how that time is spent, full about how that time is spent being, you know, I used to, I used to spend so much time worrying that I wasn't spending time correctly. I used to do that a lot. And, and I think I I've

tried to cure myself of those moments by being like, sometimes it's okay not to be a hundred percent productive right now. That's okay. It's okay to do. And I think you can burn yourself out of your own life by doing things that make it so that you have to feel like you're 100% productive all every moment because your life is slowly draining away in an hourglass. You've got to think about it though. I think you do need to prioritize the things that give you pleasure. You need to prioritize the things in your life that you want to remember and you want other people around you to remember those, you know, the people I think about these people who made these big bucket lists, right? They made these big bucket lists about how I want to hand feed

a fucking manta ray and you know, some beautiful ocean somewhere, but there's small bucket lists too. There's small things you can do for your life. There's small changes you can make in your life that make your life more pleasurable. And, you know, like you've got to think about not just the big things, but the small things. The small things that you can change every day to make your life more pleasurable for yourself,

you know, and that might not be, I'm not saying, you know, eat a gallon of ice cream every morning because that's pleasurable. But I am saying like prioritizing, you know, being out of the house and doing a thing that you enjoy or something like that instead of just sort of defaulting to, well, I'll only do stuff on the weekends or whatever. Yeah, I think that that's very wise. I think that the, like some of the pieces of wisdom are like they're easier. For me, they're all way easier said than done.

Like, I completely agree. Like, I think that we should prioritize joy in our life. I think that we should. And I think we should prioritize doing the things that bring us a deep sense of meaning and connection with others over everything else that we do. I really do. But like, it's very easy to, but we also, as people who are not expecting

their deaths for decades, there's also the pressure of future planning and longevity planning. And many of those things require activities that are hard to find joy in and are hard to find meaning in and then take up a lot of time. And then like being honest about who we are as people,

or at least myself, like feeling tired because of having to do all these responsible things to set yourself up and to set your family up for what needs to happen 20, 30, 40 years down the road. It doesn't mean that those revelations are wrong. They're right. I just want to acknowledge that they're also really hard, or at least I find they're hard. They're not easy.

Right. It's not easy. It's like, you know, the thing I wrote down is like a through line in this too, is like, like really to slow down in order to speed up. Like when their lives got sped up, a lot of them were talking about like, I hear every bird chirp. I'm not rushing along to go to the next thing. And it's like, yeah, I want that.

But like, I'm on the clock right now. Got to do stuff. You know? And like being present, like you were talking about before, I'll raise my hand. I'm the fucking worst at being present. I'm fucking terrible at it. No matter what I'm doing in my head, I'm keeping track of the time. I know what I've got to do next. I know when I have to leave to get there. I am the worst at being present. I am just literally naturally not good at that. So a lot of these revelations that these folks described, I completely agree with.

And I wonder to myself, if I were diagnosed tomorrow, how hard would it be to break the patterns of the living in order to shift into those other patterns? And I don't know, maybe it would be easy. Maybe it clarifies things. You know what I mean? Like maybe there's just a possibility, a crystallization emotionally. I don't know. Yeah. There's a possibility. Have you ever had anybody that had something like this happen that you knew that they were going to pass away? Everybody I've known that's passed has passed suddenly. So my dad broke his leg. And then after that, his whole body started to shut down.

Yeah, I remember. And for about four or five weeks, he was alive and awake and, and look, cogent, but he was, you know, you, you could tell he was dying. Right.

Right. And so we had a great, a great couple of weeks, four or five. Now it wasn't, we didn't go to the fucking Maldives. Dad stayed, no dad stayed in the nursing home.

So dad wasn't, dad wasn't, you know, traveling all over. Dad was sick. But I had a lot of meaningful, wonderful moments with my father while he was in that place. Right.

And then dad passed away about six weeks afterwards. My mom, on the other hand, she was a shell of her former self. So my mom, we knew she was probably going to pass away, but my mom, she had dementia. Right. So that's not a, that's not a good, that's, that's one that you're like, that's not even like the same person.

Right. That's a different person. Or that's a person who's stuck on, my mom was stuck on repeat. She just repeats. So she just would just constantly repeat the same stuff. So my mom was stuck on repeat. So she wasn't the same person. She had a totally different person.

So there, like you were saying, you know, you didn't want to use the word privilege, but there is a tiniest bit of luck in some ways to catch this where you're, you know, you're young enough to continue to do a lot of stuff, but you know, you're going to go in some way. You know, my, my mom, you know, she was, she was essentially gone when she was gone. When you were talking to her, she just wasn't there. You know, there was a pattern that she had that she would follow, but it wasn't her. And so I think like there is this feeling of if somebody is young enough and still has some vitality to them, this 18 months can be a lot more,

in some ways, a lot more meaningful than the three weeks or so my dad had at the very end or the couple of years my mom had at the very end that were all in the dementia sort of portion. I think I have also had, I've never had anybody like that has had this like young where you like they're young. Yeah. Same. Thankfully. And it's, you know, thankfully. And in some ways you say thankfully because you want that long life

with them. Right. I mean, I guess in every way you say thankfully. Thankfully for me, I've had people in my life that have died young, but they were sudden. It's all sudden. Yeah. Yeah. And sudden is terrible. Sudden is terrible.

Sudden is terrible. Yeah. Sudden is terrible. And there's no, there's this, this, this is something that I think is in some ways a gift. So I want to ask you a couple of questions because is this how, I know we don't get a preference, but I'm curious, is this how you would want to go? Or would you rather, you know, have to die in your sleep peacefully?

Like, because I've always wanted, like if I had the choice in my head, this has always been, because this is the movie death, right? That's the other thing is that to some degree, we have also romanticized this kind of death where you have those moments with family, moments with friends, the opportunity to embrace

and to say your goodbyes and for them to tell you that they love you and to have your affairs put in order emotionally and otherwise, maybe to have some last experiences. And I think it's like the kind of movie death for a reason. So in my mind, this has always been like, if I got to pick,

that's what I'd pick I don't I think if I could pick my hope is is that I get the die in your sleep death a little bit down the road without knowing

and I still had all that people that love me still love me and I still love them and I showed that love to them every day. And that my life was meaningful up until that last moment, regardless of whether or not I knew it was coming. Sure.

That it was meaningful regardless. So I hope the second, I hope the other one. You want to go just in your sleep suddenly. But I still want to do all this. Yeah. I just want to do it on a longer timeline. Right. I just want to try it on a longer timeline. Right.

I just want to try to, I want to try to every day live my life like it is the last in every way that's possible and feasible for me. To do it. Yeah. Right. And I think like,

that's a goal. I don't know that I'm there, but it's a goal. I think that would be a pretty great goal. And as I'm growing older, I want that goal to become more and more realized. And so like, you know, in five or six years, I hope every single day of my life

is very different than it is now where I do build habits that make it so that if I were to go, it's okay. Yeah. Yeah. I like that idea. I like everything you just said. I like everything you just said. I like everything you just said,

but there's a part of me that's like, I still want that other thing because maybe I've been sold it. Yeah. And like, but, but also like, and maybe this is like cynical shitty part of me, but like we're all always dying,

but everybody else is too. And kind of you get an opportunity to sort of like, because this is how I want everyone in my life to go too, so that I have a chance to be like, hey, this will crystallize this emotional moment. You want to die out loud? Yeah. I do though, I do.

I would be, I'll die the way I die, and I won't feel anything about it when it's done. I won't be disappointed because there won't be a me to be disappointed. But I say that I say die out loud because that's how David Warnock's doing it. It would scare. It's the idea of dying in my sleep is the scariest thing. I don't. Yeah. I don't want,

I want to know I'm going, man. Like I want, I feel like I get to live. Oh no. And then I want to experience the dying part. I want to go on my sleep and I want to shit the bed. I just want to shit the bed so bad. I just want to shit the bed. I want to have cool last words, like Oscar Wilde style. Like I want, you know, I want to bring some drama. I want to be like, where's the aspirin? And then I want to die. I want nothing.

I want no one to remember me. So here lies someone I forgot about. All right. So the classic would you rather question. Would you rather know how you're going to die or when you're going to die? If it's how or when, then when. Yeah. If it's those two, then it's that the first one's useless. Yeah. How is useless? I'm not, I'm not skydiving every week. So it doesn't, you know what I mean? Like if they, if they say car, it's like, what are you going to do? Not car? Like, I live in

the middle of America where it's impossible to get around without a car. Are you kidding me? Like, would it be crazy if like, so let's say you picked how, and then like you open the card or whatever, however the car, it's a magic twilight zone thing, right? And it's like,

and you open the, yeah. Right. And you open the twilight zone card. It just says nuclear blast. And you're like, Holy shit. What?

I wish I knew when I wish I knew when I wish I knew when there I wish I knew when. I wish I knew when. There's so much. There's so many unanswered questions on this card. So good. Yeah. You would, I would have such regret for the first one over the second one, because you would,

you would constantly want to know when I think when is when. And like, if it was something insane, you'd be like Gators. What do you mean Gators? I want to flip it open with the when it'd be like 20,000 years in the future and I'll be like, what? You like get Futurama'd, you know?

Yeah, they put my head in a basket or something. That'd be fucking amazing. Are you kidding me? Yeah. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about, we're talking about the assisted suicide in Illinois is going to be, they're starting to look for that to be a thing that we have here. A couple of states have that available, but our state does not.

I think both of us come down on the side of that's, you know, the right to die is important. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, that is something that I think doesn't get a lot of press

and doesn't get a lot of people who are, you know, there's not a lot of marching in the street for right to death. Which is kind of crazy. But really,

to be honest, I'd like to see more of it. And in this article, there was an article that we read, there's a dude in this article who's like, no one should ever like choose to die. And then in this article, there was an article that we read. There was a dude in this article who's like,

no one should ever choose to die. It's like this crazy person. He's such an asshole about it. Yeah. It's Dr. Daniel Solmasi. He's an ethicist, physician, and former professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. He says, I think it is bad medicine, bad ethics, and bad public

policy. It is bad medicine in the sense that it absolutely shouldn't be necessary. What the fuck are you talking about? It shouldn't be necessary. Okay, well, fucking, when we live in Star Trek, and they could just walk up and be like,

and my fucking brain tumors are gone. Great. Until then, let's make sure that people can go out, check out with some dignity. So many people die in agony. Like, there's, oh, it shouldn't be necessary. We can control the pain. Like, no out with some dignity. So many people die in agony. Like there's, oh, it shouldn't be necessary.

We can control the pain. Like, no, you can't. So many people die in terrible pain and fear. That's just true. Yeah. Like it shouldn't be, fuck off. Then he says, I'm so mad at this guy. Then he says, it is bad ethics in the sense

that we should never concede that someone's life, that somebody has a life that's unworthy of being lived. And I'm like, who was anybody but that person? I know. The judge of that question. What are you? Who the fuck are you, dude? I don't believe in a external de facto sanctity of life.

I believe that the sanctity of life is exclusively internal. So like the sanctity of my life is exclusively bound up in my own valuation of that. If I no longer value my own life, nobody else has fucking anything to say about that, right? Now, I think that there are times when it is really problematic and difficult. Like if you have responsibilities to other people, et cetera, you know, like I think we should do our best to discharge our responsibilities to other people. But like, if I get big sick, not going to get better sick, going to die in pain or, you know, going to die with like no dignity, like, yeah, I should have the right to end it in a peaceful way and in a way that doesn't require me to use violence and traumatize other people in the finding of my body

like in order for me to go. Because the way you got to go if you don't have this is terrible. Yeah, there's very few. It's violence against yourself or you know, you don't know what could or possibly not kill you if you try to overdose or something on drugs. It's just a bad

call. It's a huge amount of gamble. You could fuck yourself up and be worse off and create a burden that you're trying to avoid on other people. Like, yeah,

it's, this is the best case scenario. And like, we recognize how, we recognize the, the sort of, for lack of a better word, the grace that this offers

when we give this to our pets. we know when it pets. Yeah. We know this. Like we, like to our pets. We know when it pets. Yeah. We know this. Like we, like nobody who has ever loved an animal deeply and then put that animal to sleep has felt like they've done anything but a kindness and a mercy, not a cruelty.

So I find it really bizarre that we somehow can't extend that same kindness to ourselves. Yeah. I mean, I remember, I remember when we put, we put a Piper down, the lady was like,

he's going to die tonight. Like, he's going to die tonight and he's in terrible pain. Do you feel him shivering? He's in terrible pain. His liver was like oversized. Yeah.

He's in terrible pain. Like, it's actually a load off your mind to help that animal die because right now it's literally in pain and suffering. Right. So wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't you want that?

Like, wouldn't you want that? And what good is it? Like, to get to this guy's point about, like, well, you know, because what I think what he's suggesting is there's lots of things we can give people tons of drugs like am i really alive if you drug me if i'm in such terrible pain that you've got to drug me up to where i don't know up from down who fucking am i anymore like what's am i alive am i doing am i performing any functions of being alive if i'm in and out of consciousness and i understand i get like the like I don't know that I want to get to where like it was children of men with the quietest that they were sending out. People can like pop pills at home and just kill themselves or whatever.

Cause the world's going to shit and it's fucking post-apocalyptic. I don't know that I want to get there, but I certainly would love it if a medical professional was available to come over like they were for my animals. Right. Yeah. You know, that's what I would love to have available to me.

When you think about the, the previous story and you think about the bucket list stuff, do you have a bucket list? I have a, yeah, I have a bucket list. Yeah. Yeah.

I can't, I don't really have one. No. I try to think of stuff, but I can't really think of anything that's like, I need to do this thing. I think about stuff that I kind of wanted, but I can't really think of anything that's like, I need to do this thing. I think about stuff that I kind of wanted, like, like places I might want to eventually see like in person, I guess. But like, there's nothing that's like an action that to me is just like,

I need to do this thing. Yeah. So for me, they're not like, I need things. They're sort of like, yeah, I would really think this would be a lot of fun I'd like to try that once you know like I'd like to drive a stupid shit like and they're super like stereotypical

and I recognize that but like I would really love to drive a race car like take one of those like stunt driving classes yeah that sounds like fun sure

I love driving I'd like to drive I think it would be really fun to get behind the wheel but like yeah so that like I'd like to fly an airplane. Like that would be really exciting.

You look like, this is like your worst nightmare. Well, I'm just wondering like, the one, the one good thing is Tom in an airplane, it's like live Google Maps

because he gets a chance to see where he is the whole time. So you can't get lost. Can't get lost. GPS does all the work. GPS does all the work. How would that even work?

To fly an airplane? Yeah. You can actually just pay and like they'll take it up in the air and then you fly it around and then they land it. Oh, okay. But I think it would be cool

and I don't have the money, but like, you know, we're talking about bucket lists and not necessarily things you're ever going to be on. I'd be cool to get my pilot's license. I think that would be fun. Oh, that'd be fun.

To fly like a small plane around. Yeah, yeah. That's expensive. That's an expensive hobby. It's expensive. I'll never be able to do it pilot's license I think that would be fun to fly like a small plane around that's expensive, that's an expensive hobby I'll never be able to do it, like it's stupid expensive but like yeah, I think that would be fun and if I can't do the whole thing do part of it, the other part is like yeah, you can fly and I think that would be awesome I'd love to, it just seems like

something I'd like to do so I have a few things like that, that I'd like to do there's some places that I really, really want to go, like, and see some things I really want to see. I want to do a safari. I really want to do a safari, an African safari. So you don't have anything like that. You don't have like, I, I have like, like, I, I think it would be, I don't, it's certainly

not like, oh my God, I would need to do it. But I think there's some places on the globe I'd like to see. Right. But I don't, I don't feel like I would, like, it's a, it'd be like, yeah, if it gets on the list, eventually cool. If not, it doesn't. Also fine. It's just like, also fine. I'm sure I'll find some place that I want to go.

The Great Barrier Reef, when we went to Australia for Skepticon, the Great Barrier Reef was a bucket list item for me. It's something I wanted to do ever since I was a little kid. Oh, nice. And I'd always wanted to do it. And it was like, I could not believe my luck that I was able to do it. When I, I've traveled around the world in different places and I've wound up seeing,

and it's not a bucket list item. It just so happens that I've taken tours that wind up going there on as an ancillary thing i've seen three of the largest fart springs in the world so it's not a bucket i didn't care i just was like it just so happened that that tour or whatever i was on was also stopping the big fart place where the the bunch of fucking hot water shoots up and people like it smells like somebody shit their pants diarrhea likearrhea. Cool. That's great. Can we do something else? I remember the one of them, my favorite one was, it was in New Zealand. I went to one and they're like, Hey, we're going to eat lunch here. And I

was like, you're going to eat lunch here. It's like everything tastes like rotten eggs. It smells like eggs. I'm like, I'm not eating this. I'm like, no. So I just sat there. Did they have egg salad sandwiches? Maybe Tom, I would have no this. I'm like, no. So I just sat there. Did they have egg salad sandwiches? Maybe, Tom. I would have no idea. I would only serve cabbage and egg salad sandwiches. They cook in those things.

Have you seen that? Sometimes they'll like cook in the like boiling water and stuff. Probably taste like rotten eggs. They do like hot pot or whatever.

It's dipping beef in there. Just throw a fucking thing of garlic in there. Every once in a while a tourist falls in there yeah right oh that happens every now and again

it could have been Pierce Brosnan recently alright well that's going to wrap it up for this week we hope it wasn't depressing I don't think it was I feel like it wasn't

I think it was you know interesting if you have any comments about what we had to talk about. So what's on your bucket list? I'd love to hear. And what's on your bucket list? And here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to promise you this. I will pilfer your bucket

list. Same. So if you send something in, I'm like, I didn't think of that. I'm taking it. I'm stealing it. So send in your bucket list items so I can steal them and make more. Alright, that's going to wrap it up for this week. We'll catch you Monday with a full show. We're going I'm stealing it. So send in your bucket list items so I can steal them and make one. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We'll catch you Monday with a full show.

We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal free energy healing, water downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch, late night info docutainment.

Leo Pisces cancer cures, detox reflex foot massage, death in towers tarot cards, psychic healing crystal balls Bigfoot, yeti, aliens Churches, mosques, and synagogues Temples, dragons, giant worms Atlantis, dolphins, truthers Birthers, witches, wizards

Vaccine nuts Shaman healers, evangelists Conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata Nonsense Expose your sides Thrust your hands conspiracy, double-speak stigmata nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive.

Doubt even this. The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is basis. No refunds. Produced in association with the local dairy council and viewers like you. We'll see you next time.