In this Pod we ask whether thinking honestly about death can help us live more fully, or whether it simply makes life heavier.

Death is one of the few facts every life shares, but people meet it in wildly different ways: with fear, avoidance, faith, resistance, grief, gratitude, anger, humor, acceptance, or denial. Some traditions argue that remembering death is one of the surest paths to wisdom. Others suggest that too much attention to mortality can make us anxious, self-conscious, or unable to live freely.

This Pod will explore what mortality reveals about how we spend our time, what we love, what we avoid, what we owe one another, and what makes a life feel meaningful. We will look at death not only as an ending, but as a pressure that can clarify how we live: what we choose, what we postpone, what we regret, what we cherish, and what finally matters.

Preparation between sessions is designed to take under two hours. 

For this Pod, we will draw our conversation catalysts from the range of sources below, including poems, essays, short stories, memoir excerpts, visual art, and film or television. The final selections may shift slightly in response to the interests, questions, and energy of the group. 

The first session readings will be shared three weeks before the start of the Pod. 

Sources we'll draw from: 

• Virginia Woolf, “The Death of the Moth” (essay) 

• Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life” (philosophy) 

• Peter Schjeldahl, “The Art of Dying” (essay) 

• Atul Gawande, “Letting Go” (essay)

• A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death (excerpts)

• By Shoshana Berger and B.J. Miller 

• Oliver Sacks, “Sabbath” (essay) 

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief, selected passages (memoir) 

• Mary Oliver, “When Death Comes” (poem) 

• Philip Larkin, “Aubade” (poem) 

• Jane Kenyon, “Let Evening Come” (poem) 

• Stanley Kunitz, “The Layers” (poem) 

• Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (poem) 

• Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (novella) 

• Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, selected passages (nonfiction) 

• Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals, selected passages (memoir) 

• Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, selected passages (psychology/philosophy) S

• ogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, selected passages (spiritual writing) 

• Akira Kurosawa, Ikiru (film) 

• Dan Krauss, Extremis (documentary) 

• On Being with Krista Tippett, “Atul Gawande: What Matters in the End” (podcast) 

• Lucy Kalanithi, “What Makes Life Worth Living in the Face of Death” (talk) 

• Plato, Phaedo, selected passages (philosophy) 

• Ezekiel Emanuel, “Why I Hope to Die at 75” (essay) 

• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, selected passages on mortality (philosophy)  

• The Dhammapada, selected passages on impermanence (wisdom literature) 

• Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, selected passages on death and solitude (letters) 

• Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, selected passages (essay) 

• Donald Hall, “The Third Thing” (essay) 

• Wislawa Szymborska, “On Death, without Exaggeration” (poem) 

• Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” (poem) 

• Louise Glück, “A Fantasy” (poem) 

• Yasujiro Ozu, Tokyo Story (film) 

•  Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, selected passages (nonfiction) 

• Ira Byock, The Four Things That Matter Most, selected passages (nonfiction) 

• Katy Butler, Knocking on Heaven’s Door, selected passages (nonfiction) 

• Ram Dass, Walking Each Other Home, selected passages (spiritual writing/conversation) 

• Terry Pratchett, Mort, selected passages (fiction) 

• Jorge Luis Borges, “The Immortal” (short story)