Joyful Research

My Topic
My topic of interest is the far-away death of (young) healthy people. I want to move healthy people to think about their death and if nessecarry prepare for it, as we prepare for basically everything in life but for death. In my research I discovered that going through a heavy weight mental process physically may help reduce anxiety and fear and one feels more prepared.

Observation
I think I do need to mention that death is all around us. It happens to people who suffer a long lasting sickness, but it also happens so unexpectadedly to people all the time. Therefore it would make sense to think about death once in a while.

I especially observe death on the streets of Zurich a lot. At least there I see so many young people with bikes driving really unconsciously as well as car drivers not paying attention to the streets but rather to their smartphone. I conducted a little experiment in the Embodied Interaction Class where I put bananas on a car lane and a bicycle lane. The banana on the car lane got ran over pretty quickly and ended up being really nasty after some time. The banana on the bike lane was perfectly fine, as cyclists drove around the banana to save it. The best option though is the side walk, as there it only gets eaten or thrown away.

Interviews
To get a first impression about how people react to the uncanny topic of death, I made interviews with my family and friends. In total it was 6 pepople. The interview was based on questions of the Patientenverfügung of the Palliativ Netz and the USZ. But it also has other questions that interested me in particular.
The questions and some answers were the following:

a) How much do you like living?
Here the answer mostly was that people like to live very much.

b) What gives you meaning to live a long life?
Here people mentioned that they want to discover the world but also witness how the world will be changeing in the future. They also want to explore nature, culture and their own footsteps in the world.

c) What comes to mind when thinking about death?
Here it was mentioned that dying is a process from the terrible time of knowing that one dies until they really «leave the earth». But also redemption was mentioned and that nothing is forever.
One person took the question more literal and answered: Graveyard.

d) Have you ever thought about a Patientenverfügung?
Divided opinions in this case. Most people thought about it but were either too lazy to do one or just never managed to do one. One person has dealt with it more deeply but is unsure whether to do one or not.

e) Did you ever feel very close to death?
Most people said no. One person said through psychedelics one person said that they thought they ate rat poison and then they were in a shock moment.

f) What do you think comes after death?
Here three answers popped up: They get turned into nature, they reincarnate, nothing.

g) Do you fear death?
Here one opinion got really crazy in my mind. The person said that death belongs to life, it’s the last form of it and that it would be nice. This answer first seems a bit distant but thinking about it, maybe life has no end as we know it in physical space (here most things have an end) life might be something humans cannot perceive fully and understand.

h) Do you mentally prepare for your own death?
Most people said no, they wouldn’t know how.

i) Would you like to simulate your own death?
Again, divided opinions here. Some people said yes, why not, everything is better in the second time. Other said, no they don’t need it should be once in a lifetime (literally).

These interviews were very insightful as a first move towards the topic. It was so nice to see how the people’s opinion differed!