“Dead people have taught me how to live better,”
June 28, 2015 4:23 PM Subscribe
The Lonely End. "Three months ago in an apartment on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan, Haruki Watanabe died alone. For weeks his body slowly decomposed, slouched in its own fluids and surrounded by fetid, fortnight-old food. He died of self-neglect, solitude, and a suspected heart problem. At 60, Watanabe, wasn’t old, nor was he especially poor. He had no friends, no job, no wife, and no concerned children. His son hadn’t spoken to him in years, nor did he want to again."
There was an askme a few years ago about how to deal with a situation like this with an elderly relative, and I felt kind of ghoulish for wanting more information. Idk if I'd ever watch that documentary though.
posted by poffin boffin at 4:52 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by poffin boffin at 4:52 PM on June 28, 2015
Very interesting article. Makes one think seriously about life and death, and how so many people reach the end of their lives without close connections or community.
posted by theorique at 4:52 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by theorique at 4:52 PM on June 28, 2015
How very sad. All over the world, there are people like this, I'm sure, who just sit and wait for the end, and those who are charged with cleaning up what's left after they go.
posted by xingcat at 5:01 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by xingcat at 5:01 PM on June 28, 2015
There's a story I heard a long time ago (the 90's) that's always haunted me. There was an old lady living in Sweden (I think it was; may have been Norway). Her Social Security check was auto-deposited in her bank account, and all her bills were auto-paid.
She was living in a rented house, and her landlord needed to get into the place to do some repairs. He tried to contact her and couldn't, so he had to go to court to get permission to enter (that being the local law) and got it. When he entered the house, he found her dead body. The medical examiner said she had been dead for years.
And no one noticed she was gone. Or, apparently, cared.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:03 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
She was living in a rented house, and her landlord needed to get into the place to do some repairs. He tried to contact her and couldn't, so he had to go to court to get permission to enter (that being the local law) and got it. When he entered the house, he found her dead body. The medical examiner said she had been dead for years.
And no one noticed she was gone. Or, apparently, cared.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:03 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
I hope I've embedded myself into other people's lives well enough that I don't have to worry about this happening to me, but it will certainly drive me to keep up my relationships as I get older. I want someone to care if I'm missing.
posted by emjaybee at 5:03 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by emjaybee at 5:03 PM on June 28, 2015
@Chocolate Pickle I know of a similar story, but it's from a documentary called Dreams of A Life. ME said she was dead for 3 years but nobody looked for her. Even the neighbours didn't report the smell (they always thought it was the garbage bins nearby).
What was really sad about the whole thing was everybody knew her to be outgoing and had a vibrant life ahead of her. They always thought she was off somewhere doing something exciting. Instead she died alone at her bedsit, surrounded by Christmas presents.
This OP is eerily similar to what happened to her.
I wonder about the depth our presence make in other people's lives.
posted by pleasebekind at 5:21 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
What was really sad about the whole thing was everybody knew her to be outgoing and had a vibrant life ahead of her. They always thought she was off somewhere doing something exciting. Instead she died alone at her bedsit, surrounded by Christmas presents.
This OP is eerily similar to what happened to her.
I wonder about the depth our presence make in other people's lives.
posted by pleasebekind at 5:21 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
Why would dying like this be worse for me than some other way to die? If I didn't want people around in my day to day life while I was alive, how does the fact of death change it? I like the idea of dying alone, because I like being alone.
posted by idiopath at 5:23 PM on June 28, 2015 [34 favorites]
posted by idiopath at 5:23 PM on June 28, 2015 [34 favorites]
Dutch documentary: Poule des Doods
When there will be no next of kin present at a funeral, a custom-written poem is recited by a renowned poet. What does one write for somebody who is no longer known to anyone? In Amsterdam only, a yearly average of fifteen people die whose funeral will be unattended. Be it nameless people, or people with a name, but with one thing in common: there will be no friends or family at their burial or cremation. Led by poet F. Starik a group of Dutch poets, Menno Wigman en Maria Barnas among them, have united in the Pool of Death. They accompany the lonely deceased to the grave by means of a poem specially written for the occasion.
posted by yoHighness at 5:28 PM on June 28, 2015 [41 favorites]
When there will be no next of kin present at a funeral, a custom-written poem is recited by a renowned poet. What does one write for somebody who is no longer known to anyone? In Amsterdam only, a yearly average of fifteen people die whose funeral will be unattended. Be it nameless people, or people with a name, but with one thing in common: there will be no friends or family at their burial or cremation. Led by poet F. Starik a group of Dutch poets, Menno Wigman en Maria Barnas among them, have united in the Pool of Death. They accompany the lonely deceased to the grave by means of a poem specially written for the occasion.
posted by yoHighness at 5:28 PM on June 28, 2015 [41 favorites]
Why would dying like this be worse for me than some other way to die? If I didn't want people around in my day to day life while I was alive, how does the fact of death change it? I like the idea of dying alone, because I like being alone.
Perhaps it's not the worst way for someone who thinks like you, but not everyone is like that. Humans tend to be social animals, but some have trouble with forming those bonds even if they want to.
There's a difference between being alone and being lonely.
posted by dazed_one at 5:29 PM on June 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
Perhaps it's not the worst way for someone who thinks like you, but not everyone is like that. Humans tend to be social animals, but some have trouble with forming those bonds even if they want to.
There's a difference between being alone and being lonely.
posted by dazed_one at 5:29 PM on June 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
It makes me wonder what we all gave up when we left the villages and moved to the cities. It's an example of a "first world" problem. Somethine like this couldn't happen to someone living on a dollar a day in a village in Africa. It's a tough life, and there are lots of unpleasant ways to die, but if you do die someone will know it.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:29 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:29 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
“Around 90 percent of the cases I deal with are men,” Koremura says. “Unlike women, men seem incapable of integrating themselves into a community when they live alone.”
I wonder why this is?
Also: this reminded me of another FPP from a while ago.
posted by gemutlichkeit at 5:41 PM on June 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
I wonder why this is?
Also: this reminded me of another FPP from a while ago.
posted by gemutlichkeit at 5:41 PM on June 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
If I didn't want people around in my day to day life while I was alive, how does the fact of death change it?
I spent a few years working as a buyer for a used book store, and often ended up as a de facto estate buyer for folks that had died with no or only indifferent, distant relatives. Some of those houses were orderly, full of books, music, and art, and seemed like evidence of lives well-lived, despite having been lived in relative isolation. These were the exception, though - the others were like Watanabe's: filthy, crammed with trash, and with a residue of palpable, unsettling misery. The quality of finality - that you can live an entire life wrestling with mental illness, family strife, poor health, poverty, etc., and just lose - embodied in those houses is part of what makes articles and photos like this powerful, I think. We live in a culture that goes on endlessly about second chances and the power of positive thinking, while all the while there's a body rotting behind some yellowing curtains down the street that no one gives a second thought to until it starts to reek.
Some of us can live in near or total isolation and function well, but most cannot. It can be helpful to have a powerful reminder of what's waiting if you don't at least make an effort to come to grips with what's keeping you isolated, if it isn't something that genuinely brings you peace of mind.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:46 PM on June 28, 2015 [43 favorites]
I spent a few years working as a buyer for a used book store, and often ended up as a de facto estate buyer for folks that had died with no or only indifferent, distant relatives. Some of those houses were orderly, full of books, music, and art, and seemed like evidence of lives well-lived, despite having been lived in relative isolation. These were the exception, though - the others were like Watanabe's: filthy, crammed with trash, and with a residue of palpable, unsettling misery. The quality of finality - that you can live an entire life wrestling with mental illness, family strife, poor health, poverty, etc., and just lose - embodied in those houses is part of what makes articles and photos like this powerful, I think. We live in a culture that goes on endlessly about second chances and the power of positive thinking, while all the while there's a body rotting behind some yellowing curtains down the street that no one gives a second thought to until it starts to reek.
Some of us can live in near or total isolation and function well, but most cannot. It can be helpful to have a powerful reminder of what's waiting if you don't at least make an effort to come to grips with what's keeping you isolated, if it isn't something that genuinely brings you peace of mind.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:46 PM on June 28, 2015 [43 favorites]
Absent a full demographic accounting (as linked in the article: Japanese bureaucrats admitted 18 months ago that they had lost track of nearly a quarter-million people over 100 years old...)
... I'm inclined to read this as a bookending of the Japanese population with people who are abandoned and forgotten as they age on one end, and then the people at the other end of the age spectrum who just say "Why bother? I've seen what this gets you" (the hikikomori).
It makes me wonder what we all gave up when we left the villages and moved to the cities. It's an example of a "first world" problem.
Longer lifespans will do that. But it's how we treat people that's the fundamental question.
From the article:
Further into the apartment, the living room is stacked high with clutter and indolence.
and
The room is littered with these shrines to domestic irresponsibility.
I get the sense from the author that this couldn't be him, ever. Oh, no. Unlike the subject of the story, who seemed to get it.
Yet at the same time, he acknowledges the sort of things that went into this dead fellow's sense of identity as a worker, and how he built up his identity around that. When that went away, he was left with nothing to live for. I mean, we will never know who "Haruki Watanabe" was or exactly what his life was like. But the details we have suggest his life was average, I guess? He bought into the prevailing work ethic, and then was battered by economic circumstances not of his making despite working his butt off and devoting his life to the company.
At the same time, Toru Koremura says:
“I had no idea what I was going to do,” he says impassively, while staring out of the windshield. “I was caught up in a routine I hated.”
Koremura, as I read it, would like to do something that acknowledges that yes, this could be anyone's flat he walks into. Including his own, one day, maybe?
So maybe these are the leavings of someone who was sad and depressed and lonely, not someone who was "indolent" or "irresponsible." There are lots of ways people can end up there. Some of those could be their own doing, while others are the indifference of others (family, society at large).
I dunno. I just read those two notions (indolent and irresponsible) as grossly insensitive. It's a hell of a way to sum up a life. But he was just going on the physical evidence.
The older I get, the more kinship I feel with the crabbiest old people I meet. I like them more and more. Maybe if you miss seeing the older person down the hall who you normally bump into every day like clockwork, knock on his or her door? "Everything okay? Just thought I'd check."
You don't have to be an indifferent monster to be an urbanite.
And let me head off the snark at the pass "You don't have to be an indifferent monster to be an urbanite. But it helps."
Ok. Be good to each other.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:55 PM on June 28, 2015 [33 favorites]
... I'm inclined to read this as a bookending of the Japanese population with people who are abandoned and forgotten as they age on one end, and then the people at the other end of the age spectrum who just say "Why bother? I've seen what this gets you" (the hikikomori).
It makes me wonder what we all gave up when we left the villages and moved to the cities. It's an example of a "first world" problem.
Longer lifespans will do that. But it's how we treat people that's the fundamental question.
From the article:
Further into the apartment, the living room is stacked high with clutter and indolence.
and
The room is littered with these shrines to domestic irresponsibility.
I get the sense from the author that this couldn't be him, ever. Oh, no. Unlike the subject of the story, who seemed to get it.
Yet at the same time, he acknowledges the sort of things that went into this dead fellow's sense of identity as a worker, and how he built up his identity around that. When that went away, he was left with nothing to live for. I mean, we will never know who "Haruki Watanabe" was or exactly what his life was like. But the details we have suggest his life was average, I guess? He bought into the prevailing work ethic, and then was battered by economic circumstances not of his making despite working his butt off and devoting his life to the company.
At the same time, Toru Koremura says:
“I had no idea what I was going to do,” he says impassively, while staring out of the windshield. “I was caught up in a routine I hated.”
Koremura, as I read it, would like to do something that acknowledges that yes, this could be anyone's flat he walks into. Including his own, one day, maybe?
So maybe these are the leavings of someone who was sad and depressed and lonely, not someone who was "indolent" or "irresponsible." There are lots of ways people can end up there. Some of those could be their own doing, while others are the indifference of others (family, society at large).
I dunno. I just read those two notions (indolent and irresponsible) as grossly insensitive. It's a hell of a way to sum up a life. But he was just going on the physical evidence.
The older I get, the more kinship I feel with the crabbiest old people I meet. I like them more and more. Maybe if you miss seeing the older person down the hall who you normally bump into every day like clockwork, knock on his or her door? "Everything okay? Just thought I'd check."
You don't have to be an indifferent monster to be an urbanite.
And let me head off the snark at the pass "You don't have to be an indifferent monster to be an urbanite. But it helps."
Ok. Be good to each other.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:55 PM on June 28, 2015 [33 favorites]
Chocolate Pickle's story sounds a bit like this one from 2014 (link in Swedish), in which a 70-year old Norwegian woman was found in her apartment in Sweden, having died a couple of years earlier. Of course, there were plenty of early signs that something wasn't quite right (unpaid bills, a full mailbox, companies doing building maintenance failing to reach her, the electricity turned off, nobody seeing her for months, etc) and many had reached the authorities, but nobody connected the dots since all that is stuff that happens all the time...
posted by effbot at 6:02 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by effbot at 6:02 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
There was a story like this in Scotland just this week -http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3140517/Elderly-man-s-body-lying-undiscovered-flat-THREE-YEARS-say-police.html
posted by the agents of KAOS at 6:18 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by the agents of KAOS at 6:18 PM on June 28, 2015
Yeah, this is not going to happen to me. I have friends, relatives, I'm part of a community, damn it!
(Note to self: wire explosives to heart monitor, soonest.)
posted by happyroach at 6:20 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
(Note to self: wire explosives to heart monitor, soonest.)
posted by happyroach at 6:20 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
There was a story like this in Scotland just this week
Yeah but to be fair the Daily Mail runs a story like that twice a week, true or no.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:20 PM on June 28, 2015
Yeah but to be fair the Daily Mail runs a story like that twice a week, true or no.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:20 PM on June 28, 2015
In the unlikely event that I survive my wife, this is most likely how I will die. In the more likely event that I die first (since after all I almost died last year at the age of 50, thank you for the save cath lab) I think it's very likely that's how she will die. I can't speak for her but I don't have a problem with this. I suppose it's common to feel body horror over what happens after you die, but I like to remember one of the rotten dot com faqs, when asked how they would feel if someone posted their dead body pics online: Wouldn't feel much at all, what with being dead and all that.
Ashes are just ashes and dust is just dust. The atoms that make us possible were created in supernovae billions of years ago, and our atoms will all eventually be consumed by Sol when it becomes a red giant and engulfs the Earth. Everything in between is just details.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:25 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
Ashes are just ashes and dust is just dust. The atoms that make us possible were created in supernovae billions of years ago, and our atoms will all eventually be consumed by Sol when it becomes a red giant and engulfs the Earth. Everything in between is just details.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:25 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
Why would dying like this be worse for me than some other way to die? If I didn't want people around in my day to day life while I was alive, how does the fact of death change it? I like the idea of dying alone, because I like being alone.
I mean, there's a difference between dying alone and dying from being alone - getting too lonely and sad to take care of yourself, or having no one to notice that you're sick and need to go to the hospital, or just sort of withering away from the sads until your heart gives out.
My house is full of music, books and art and also full of domestic irresponsibility, but some of that is housemates.
My clever plan so far is to have a younger, spryer but very introverted housemate - I think it's quite possible that I will grow old along with the current one, and I've already said that I'll leave him the house (I won't have anyone else) if he stays to the bitter end.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 PM on June 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
I mean, there's a difference between dying alone and dying from being alone - getting too lonely and sad to take care of yourself, or having no one to notice that you're sick and need to go to the hospital, or just sort of withering away from the sads until your heart gives out.
My house is full of music, books and art and also full of domestic irresponsibility, but some of that is housemates.
My clever plan so far is to have a younger, spryer but very introverted housemate - I think it's quite possible that I will grow old along with the current one, and I've already said that I'll leave him the house (I won't have anyone else) if he stays to the bitter end.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 PM on June 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
I wasn't okay with seeing the pictures in this article. It was a good article and I'm glad I read it, but the pictures were too much. I really did feel like I was intruding, seeing something it wasn't my business to see. If I had known about the pictures, I wouldn't have read the article.
posted by evil otto at 6:48 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by evil otto at 6:48 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
(Note to self: wire explosives to heart monitor, soonest.)
Explosives will just spread the mess, not clear it.
Perhaps the solution is a completely fireproof apartment wired up with incendiary charges, detonated upon the death of the occupant (and the absence of any other occupants)? Combined with a houseboat, one could make it an automated Viking funeral.
posted by acb at 6:49 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
Explosives will just spread the mess, not clear it.
Perhaps the solution is a completely fireproof apartment wired up with incendiary charges, detonated upon the death of the occupant (and the absence of any other occupants)? Combined with a houseboat, one could make it an automated Viking funeral.
posted by acb at 6:49 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
I suspect this is how I'll end this existence. I'm an introvert, no interest in marriage or progeny, my parents divorced ages ago and we mostly just don't talk anymore. My bills are mostly auto-paid, except for taxes, and I own the house I live in, though of course that may change. I try to keep the house clean, but there are times where that falls to the wayside as there's nobody else to see the mess. When I'm gone, nobody will miss me, and I kinda like it that way.
posted by Blackanvil at 6:54 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Blackanvil at 6:54 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
→ I wasn't okay with seeing the pictures in this article
Do not not not follow ryanshephard's "A Certain Kind of Death" YT link, then. I may never be able to unsee the dead dude on the toilet.
posted by scruss at 6:58 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Do not not not follow ryanshephard's "A Certain Kind of Death" YT link, then. I may never be able to unsee the dead dude on the toilet.
posted by scruss at 6:58 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Count me into the "you will die alone, unmourned and unloved" camp. I have various issues that mean I don't have any friends. If I make it to retirement there will be no reason why anyone will miss my absence from a particular place. I suppose it's an argument for always paying the rent by dropping off a cheque, so you have at most a month to go before your corpse is discovered. Even if your only motivation is courtesy for the next occupants of the suite.
posted by Grimgrin at 7:09 PM on June 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Grimgrin at 7:09 PM on June 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think the article completely deniea the difficulty being an aging man or women with no outside assistance. I work with disabled adults who while not in old age health wise have bodies of 80 year olds. The sheer difficulty it takes to maintain an apartment and navigate daily activities of living is amazing.
Add a social worker I am sometimes their only lifeline to the outside world. It saddens me when I as a complete stranger becomes an emergency contact. Or when someone passes and the landlord just has to throw things away. The reasons vary, but poverty, history of substance use, and mental illness play a role with my caseload (note I work with people with previous episodes of homelessness). I was even in somebody's will once (I couldn't take the things obviously).
It honestly doesn't take much to make a connection with an elderly or disabled person, most are so in need and yearning for contact if they are isolated.
Be a good neighbor and have a big heart. You never know the impact you can make on someone. And don't steal their money or drugs. (This is a psa brought to you by someone who has seen way to much of that)
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:11 PM on June 28, 2015 [12 favorites]
Add a social worker I am sometimes their only lifeline to the outside world. It saddens me when I as a complete stranger becomes an emergency contact. Or when someone passes and the landlord just has to throw things away. The reasons vary, but poverty, history of substance use, and mental illness play a role with my caseload (note I work with people with previous episodes of homelessness). I was even in somebody's will once (I couldn't take the things obviously).
It honestly doesn't take much to make a connection with an elderly or disabled person, most are so in need and yearning for contact if they are isolated.
Be a good neighbor and have a big heart. You never know the impact you can make on someone. And don't steal their money or drugs. (This is a psa brought to you by someone who has seen way to much of that)
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:11 PM on June 28, 2015 [12 favorites]
It's really weird how that article and many people just instantly leap to the conclusion that this man and people who live and die alone are "miserable" or "lonely" or otherwise pathetic. I mean, I'm sure some of them are, but some of us aren't, and people in all sorts of living and social situations are miserable and lonely for all sorts of reasons. I live alone (well, without other humans) in idyllic happiness , and I can easily imagine some of the household chores eventually getting to be more than I can handle in a decade or two, or my coming to care less about them as I need more energy for other things. So what? I mean, plenty of young people live in cluttered, disorderly, decrepit, and outright filthy houses by choice or necessity or having other priorities. I'm sort of a clutter-phobe semi-neat-freak by nature, but when your sparkling kitchen floor is inevitably going to get muddy pawprints on it 20 minutes after you mop it, you can either loosen up a little and become more lackadaisical about it or give yourself a stroke.
For me, a far more unpleasant vision of my old age is forced socializing -- being parked in a place where I won't be left to my music and books and TV shows and computer etc. but will be made to "engage" with "community" because the neurotypical extroverts in charge of those facilities have decided that's what's healthy and best for everyone -- where I'll be stuck in a small room with a roommate I have nothing in common with and have to do pointless godawful mind-numbing teeth-grinding small-talk for a decade. God, it'd be like being re-consigned to high-school or some horrible dinner party 24/7. A heart attack in my own cruddy house doesn't sound so terrible to me -- as long as all the animals are gone by then and aren't left to suffer cruelly until they die or someone finds us. That's the only big worry I have about the "nobody notices for weeks/months/years" element.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:29 PM on June 28, 2015 [43 favorites]
For me, a far more unpleasant vision of my old age is forced socializing -- being parked in a place where I won't be left to my music and books and TV shows and computer etc. but will be made to "engage" with "community" because the neurotypical extroverts in charge of those facilities have decided that's what's healthy and best for everyone -- where I'll be stuck in a small room with a roommate I have nothing in common with and have to do pointless godawful mind-numbing teeth-grinding small-talk for a decade. God, it'd be like being re-consigned to high-school or some horrible dinner party 24/7. A heart attack in my own cruddy house doesn't sound so terrible to me -- as long as all the animals are gone by then and aren't left to suffer cruelly until they die or someone finds us. That's the only big worry I have about the "nobody notices for weeks/months/years" element.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:29 PM on June 28, 2015 [43 favorites]
Do not not not follow ryanshephard's "A Certain Kind of Death" YT link, then. I may never be able to unsee the dead dude on the toilet.
Yeah, there's a few decomposed people in that video. I was "alright" with that, given the subject matter, but a (warning: graphic) definitely applies here.
It's a great comment, though, and thanks ryanshephard for the link to the documentary.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:29 PM on June 28, 2015
Yeah, there's a few decomposed people in that video. I was "alright" with that, given the subject matter, but a (warning: graphic) definitely applies here.
It's a great comment, though, and thanks ryanshephard for the link to the documentary.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:29 PM on June 28, 2015
Here's a link to audio of The Lonely Funeral, the audio version of the Dutch documentary described above. It's well done.
posted by zadcat at 7:30 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by zadcat at 7:30 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
man, really makes me think I should take up increasingly strange risky adventure sports as I age...... I'll start doing the wingsuit thing by the time I'm 70, surely...
posted by kaibutsu at 7:31 PM on June 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 7:31 PM on June 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
It wouldn't be the worst thing to die alone (or any worse than dying in general), but it would pain me to think I might leave a messy traumatic scene and contaminate everything in my house so that no one else could use it. I want to be decently interred/cremated so that I get recycled in a good way, not part of a toxic-goo incineration. I want whatever is useful in my dwelling to go to loved ones or random strangers who could use them. I mean, I'll be dead, I won't care then, but I care now, because it pains me to think of causing people trauma like that.
posted by emjaybee at 7:56 PM on June 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 7:56 PM on June 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
I think, possibly, I would follow my dog's example. He was always more introverted than other dogs, if that makes sense. (And by that I mean: I had other dogs before him, and he was especially quiet and unassuming, and I myself am an introvert.)
During the last few years of his life he has taken to burrowing under things (like the car), in the dark, on the cold floor, and lying there for as long as he liked. I often jokingly told him, "Don't die on me when you've crawled up into somewhere in this house where it would be hard for me to find you, or get to you."
When it was time for him to die: he crawled out of one of his spaces and positioned himself by the door. That's how I found him when I came home. His name was Miles.
posted by pleasebekind at 8:08 PM on June 28, 2015 [66 favorites]
During the last few years of his life he has taken to burrowing under things (like the car), in the dark, on the cold floor, and lying there for as long as he liked. I often jokingly told him, "Don't die on me when you've crawled up into somewhere in this house where it would be hard for me to find you, or get to you."
When it was time for him to die: he crawled out of one of his spaces and positioned himself by the door. That's how I found him when I came home. His name was Miles.
posted by pleasebekind at 8:08 PM on June 28, 2015 [66 favorites]
So, Watanabe was 60; he would have been in his mid-thirties, at his prime, when the Japanese economy was also at its prime, roaring along and terrifying the western world. He had a decent amount of money at his death. And his son wanted nothing to do with him.
I can't say these facts have anything to do with each other. But just like his bed, they form a vague outline of the man.
o/~ cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon o/~
posted by Countess Elena at 8:09 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
I can't say these facts have anything to do with each other. But just like his bed, they form a vague outline of the man.
o/~ cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon o/~
posted by Countess Elena at 8:09 PM on June 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
...for anyone interested in this topic, I highly recommend the documentary "A Certain Kind of Death" , which shows how the Los Angeles city government deals with the many Haruki Watanabes who die there every year.
There's a shattering story of homophobia in this thing. Even unto death, a family (predeceasing the man in question) denying him a grave in the family plot (at 42:00).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:11 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's a shattering story of homophobia in this thing. Even unto death, a family (predeceasing the man in question) denying him a grave in the family plot (at 42:00).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:11 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
What about the pets!!! (if there are any).
Can't there be a system where neighbors get fined if they don't check every other day on people living alone? And have someone else do it for them if they're going away?
If several people live alone on one block or in one building, they could check on each other.
I suppose the problem is that some neighbors might take advantage of the situation and steal or intimidate the person (if the person lets them in). But the rule could be that the neighbor simply calls or knocks on the door, and if there is no answer they could call the authorities.
If authorities come when nobody gets called and the person has been dead a week or more, the neighbors get a fine, which goes to the cleanup fee or the animal shelter. The fine could be waived if the neighbor takes in any of the deceased's animals.
If the neighbor is too depressed or something to do this, they can get an exemption I suppose, and then neighbors would have to take turns looking in on them.
posted by serena15221 at 8:47 PM on June 28, 2015
Can't there be a system where neighbors get fined if they don't check every other day on people living alone? And have someone else do it for them if they're going away?
If several people live alone on one block or in one building, they could check on each other.
I suppose the problem is that some neighbors might take advantage of the situation and steal or intimidate the person (if the person lets them in). But the rule could be that the neighbor simply calls or knocks on the door, and if there is no answer they could call the authorities.
If authorities come when nobody gets called and the person has been dead a week or more, the neighbors get a fine, which goes to the cleanup fee or the animal shelter. The fine could be waived if the neighbor takes in any of the deceased's animals.
If the neighbor is too depressed or something to do this, they can get an exemption I suppose, and then neighbors would have to take turns looking in on them.
posted by serena15221 at 8:47 PM on June 28, 2015
Watanabe may have been too ill to clean up, and too weak to shop more than once a month. The value judgements were wasted type, as his abilities were unknown. I have a new neighbor, he is five years older than me, but really more like fifteen years older. I understand the state of isolation some people face. I also remember in Japan, those young men who don't leave their rooms, live at home, and call out for food delivery. There is a common thread.
posted by Oyéah at 8:51 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by Oyéah at 8:51 PM on June 28, 2015
It's really interesting to look around my house and wonder, "If I dropped dead right now and a total stranger came in here to take care of the post-death chores/clean-up, what would they think they knew about how my life was and how I felt about it?"
On the one hand, I don't give a shit. On the other, I'm feeling like I should leave some sort of "Just so you know, I was pretty contented" note tacked up on the front door at all times and am regretting that I didn't do the dishes tonight -- kind of like the old "always put on clean undies first thing in the morning in case you get in a car accident" thing.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:04 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
On the one hand, I don't give a shit. On the other, I'm feeling like I should leave some sort of "Just so you know, I was pretty contented" note tacked up on the front door at all times and am regretting that I didn't do the dishes tonight -- kind of like the old "always put on clean undies first thing in the morning in case you get in a car accident" thing.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:04 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
Another case, from Sydney. Seven years undiscovered, approximately.
I don't think there's any one cause to most of these cases, or any one solution. In old age, you just need a combination of a couple of setbacks or tendencies - reclusiveness, lack of mobility, lack of funds, suspicion of unknown people, paranoia, illness, dementia, absence of relatives living in reasonable proximity, being too proud and/or ashamed to ask for help, just spending less and less time out and about so gradually that people don't notice when you stop being seen around...
posted by andraste at 9:12 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
I don't think there's any one cause to most of these cases, or any one solution. In old age, you just need a combination of a couple of setbacks or tendencies - reclusiveness, lack of mobility, lack of funds, suspicion of unknown people, paranoia, illness, dementia, absence of relatives living in reasonable proximity, being too proud and/or ashamed to ask for help, just spending less and less time out and about so gradually that people don't notice when you stop being seen around...
posted by andraste at 9:12 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
I pick up the bodies of people who die alone all the time. Sometimes they're found by relatives, sometimes by bill collectors, sometimes by landlords. You'd be amazed how some people scrape by an existence. If you have to die alone in a trash heap, at least have an exit strategy for the poor undertaker. And try not to die doing something sexually embarrassing. If only for my sake. I'll be happy to never have to remove a woman's shoe from a rectum again. Also: if suicide is your choice, nothing too dramatic, please. Guns are entirely unnecessary. There are plenty of things that will kill you that won't make such a mess.
posted by ColdChef at 10:59 PM on June 28, 2015 [26 favorites]
posted by ColdChef at 10:59 PM on June 28, 2015 [26 favorites]
There was an American teacher who I worked with for a couple years. I was actually hired as a direct result of his trouble with alcohol. He had become unwell, too sick to teach a full class load, but had been at the high school for over twenty years as a full-time employee, making it almost impossible for the school to fire him.
Through the school, and the annual junior year trip to China, he met a woman there, and helped her get a visa in Japan. He left his wife for her (which, maybe, was some sort of relief for the ex-wife), and I ran into him in a hospital years later. I was there for disc issues in my back, he was there because his liver just didn't want to work anymore. His girlfriend was there, but alternating between looking bored and looking annoyed at him. I found out a couple years later that she'd left him after he'd finally been fired by the school. He died, alone, in his apartment, during the summer. Neighbors called the police about the smell, and that's how he was discovered.
Since I heard about that, the thought of dying alone here has always bothered me. Strangely, though, I'm in better daily contact with my neighbors here in Japan than I ever was with my neighbors back home.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:17 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
Through the school, and the annual junior year trip to China, he met a woman there, and helped her get a visa in Japan. He left his wife for her (which, maybe, was some sort of relief for the ex-wife), and I ran into him in a hospital years later. I was there for disc issues in my back, he was there because his liver just didn't want to work anymore. His girlfriend was there, but alternating between looking bored and looking annoyed at him. I found out a couple years later that she'd left him after he'd finally been fired by the school. He died, alone, in his apartment, during the summer. Neighbors called the police about the smell, and that's how he was discovered.
Since I heard about that, the thought of dying alone here has always bothered me. Strangely, though, I'm in better daily contact with my neighbors here in Japan than I ever was with my neighbors back home.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:17 PM on June 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
ColdChef: I'll be happy to never have to remove a woman's shoe from a rectum again.
I'm going to infer that this statement -- based on your career -- is a declaration that this isn't a one-off.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:20 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm going to infer that this statement -- based on your career -- is a declaration that this isn't a one-off.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:20 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Unless there was a pair involved.
I'll, uh, show myself out now.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:22 PM on June 28, 2015
I'll, uh, show myself out now.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:22 PM on June 28, 2015
I basically spent my college years as if I were kodokushi bound.. for me, it's not the dying alone part that scares me, it's the prospect of being socially insignificant and inconsequential that keeps me up at night.
posted by lzd at 11:50 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by lzd at 11:50 PM on June 28, 2015
it's not the dying alone part that scares me, it's the prospect of being socially insignificant and inconsequential that keeps me up at night.
That's the part that got me with this story. How utterly meaningless one person's life can be. I work hard to give meaning, or at least convince myself there is meaning, in how one chooses to conduct one's life. And I see and care for a lot of Watanbes in my profession, people who struggle to make social connections and have made some kind of peace with being completely alone. My super power is being able to (usually) break through and get at their humanity. I have a cohort of people for whom I am certain I am the only person who looks them in the eye and talks to them about how they think they're doing, how they got to where they are. Maybe I even try in vain to inspire them to do something more. But it's all still just professional rapport building and it is plainly obvious that their lives don't mean anything to anyone, and their passing will go entirely unnoticed, and we live in a very broken, sick society of isolation and pointless consumption of things made in factories delivered to us in doses that keep us breathing and eating and shitting just long enough until our bodies and spirits have had enough and we cease to exist while someone else bulldozes and burns the mess.
Then I come home and hug and tickle my kids and realize no one is really fated to that kind of an end and I am very fortunate to maybe do something small for people who want something more.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:35 AM on June 29, 2015 [8 favorites]
That's the part that got me with this story. How utterly meaningless one person's life can be. I work hard to give meaning, or at least convince myself there is meaning, in how one chooses to conduct one's life. And I see and care for a lot of Watanbes in my profession, people who struggle to make social connections and have made some kind of peace with being completely alone. My super power is being able to (usually) break through and get at their humanity. I have a cohort of people for whom I am certain I am the only person who looks them in the eye and talks to them about how they think they're doing, how they got to where they are. Maybe I even try in vain to inspire them to do something more. But it's all still just professional rapport building and it is plainly obvious that their lives don't mean anything to anyone, and their passing will go entirely unnoticed, and we live in a very broken, sick society of isolation and pointless consumption of things made in factories delivered to us in doses that keep us breathing and eating and shitting just long enough until our bodies and spirits have had enough and we cease to exist while someone else bulldozes and burns the mess.
Then I come home and hug and tickle my kids and realize no one is really fated to that kind of an end and I am very fortunate to maybe do something small for people who want something more.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:35 AM on June 29, 2015 [8 favorites]
Explosives will just spread the mess, not clear it.
The idea is not to avoid leaving a mess, but to avoid dying and not being noticed. Honestly, "His body parts were found up to a half mile from the scene" sounds better than "It was three months before the death was noticed". Especially since the former will probably be in much larger type.
It's academic in any case, since I have enough connections to the world that it would be a short time before people realized I'm no longer making a nuisance of myself.
On the other hand, it's kind if nice to image that this is how a few online personalities will end their days.
posted by happyroach at 1:25 AM on June 29, 2015
The idea is not to avoid leaving a mess, but to avoid dying and not being noticed. Honestly, "His body parts were found up to a half mile from the scene" sounds better than "It was three months before the death was noticed". Especially since the former will probably be in much larger type.
It's academic in any case, since I have enough connections to the world that it would be a short time before people realized I'm no longer making a nuisance of myself.
On the other hand, it's kind if nice to image that this is how a few online personalities will end their days.
posted by happyroach at 1:25 AM on June 29, 2015
This stuff is why I drink.
I'd actually forgotten till reading this that I once accompanied my father to the apartment of a man who owed him money, when I was a teenager, supposedly to show we meant business. You know what's coming next: we were banging on the door shouting but didn't know that he was weeks dead in there, having taken barbecue coals into the toilet. My dad never mentioned it again, we both felt like shit when we found out. So much of this stuff happening.
posted by colie at 2:49 AM on June 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'd actually forgotten till reading this that I once accompanied my father to the apartment of a man who owed him money, when I was a teenager, supposedly to show we meant business. You know what's coming next: we were banging on the door shouting but didn't know that he was weeks dead in there, having taken barbecue coals into the toilet. My dad never mentioned it again, we both felt like shit when we found out. So much of this stuff happening.
posted by colie at 2:49 AM on June 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
I wonder if living our lives online nowadays means that more people would notice our departure, should it occur. On the one hand, someone going silent on Facebook or Twitter doesn't mean much - that happens all the time and for a million reasons. On the other hand, a person could more easily "broadcast" a distress signal, last words, a final message.
e.g. via txt message: hey son i know we haven't talked in 15 years but i think im about to go just wanted to say good luck and i love you and goodbye
posted by theorique at 4:13 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
e.g. via txt message: hey son i know we haven't talked in 15 years but i think im about to go just wanted to say good luck and i love you and goodbye
posted by theorique at 4:13 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
Segundus' fetid corpse was discovered wallowing in its own filth, decaying features twisted into an undisciplined mirth-like rictus. Slumped with atrocious posture against a kind of catafalque composed of scores of empty bottles of fifty year old single malt scotch and a blizzard of cards from seamy 'high end prostitutes', the twisted cadaver bore a sign hung around its rotting, mephitic neck which read 'It's all on credit - cop this, Royal Bank of Fucking Scotland!'
posted by Segundus at 4:49 AM on June 29, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 4:49 AM on June 29, 2015 [5 favorites]
For me, a far more unpleasant vision of my old age is forced socializing -- being parked in a place where I won't be left to my music and books and TV shows and computer etc. but will be made to "engage" with "community" because the neurotypical extroverts in charge of those facilities have decided that's what's healthy and best for everyone -- where I'll be stuck in a small room with a roommate I have nothing in common with and have to do pointless godawful mind-numbing teeth-grinding small-talk for a decade. God, it'd be like being re-consigned to high-school or some horrible dinner party 24/7.
Completely agree here. The subject of this article was interesting but the author projected far too much of himself and his own values into portraying Watanabe. Using terms like "indolence" and "domestic irresponsibility" is arrogant, insulting, and disrespectful. I wish he could have emulated Koremura's straightforward and simple compassion and written this piece "without disgust, hesitation, or judgment."
posted by jammy at 5:14 AM on June 29, 2015 [9 favorites]
Completely agree here. The subject of this article was interesting but the author projected far too much of himself and his own values into portraying Watanabe. Using terms like "indolence" and "domestic irresponsibility" is arrogant, insulting, and disrespectful. I wish he could have emulated Koremura's straightforward and simple compassion and written this piece "without disgust, hesitation, or judgment."
posted by jammy at 5:14 AM on June 29, 2015 [9 favorites]
I like the idea of dying alone, because I like being alone.
It might not be a quick death. It might be a long painful frightening death. Another thing to consider is dementia.
posted by Beholder at 6:07 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
It might not be a quick death. It might be a long painful frightening death. Another thing to consider is dementia.
posted by Beholder at 6:07 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
Guns are entirely unnecessary. There are plenty of things that will kill you that won't make such a mess.
And many of them aren't as reliable. I'm not saying suicide is a valid reason for owning a gun. That would be a derail, but we seriously need an easy way to terminate pain and suffering that's as easy, quick, and efficient as putting a shotgun in your mouth and pulling the trigger. We have no nation wide assisted suicide laws, and they probably wouldn't offer any hope to people with dementia even if we did. Does the Oregon assisted suicide law cover Alzheimer disease? Does it cover long lasting crippling depression brought about by years of crummy choices, crummy luck, and crummy family? We still aren't having adult conversations about suicide in the country, and we need to start as soon as possible.
posted by Beholder at 6:19 AM on June 29, 2015 [4 favorites]
And many of them aren't as reliable. I'm not saying suicide is a valid reason for owning a gun. That would be a derail, but we seriously need an easy way to terminate pain and suffering that's as easy, quick, and efficient as putting a shotgun in your mouth and pulling the trigger. We have no nation wide assisted suicide laws, and they probably wouldn't offer any hope to people with dementia even if we did. Does the Oregon assisted suicide law cover Alzheimer disease? Does it cover long lasting crippling depression brought about by years of crummy choices, crummy luck, and crummy family? We still aren't having adult conversations about suicide in the country, and we need to start as soon as possible.
posted by Beholder at 6:19 AM on June 29, 2015 [4 favorites]
→ I wonder if living our lives online nowadays means that more people would notice our departure
I sometimes think about the last status updates of people who have died. Sometimes it's ominous or fitting (Leonard Nimoy) reading their last thought, and then sometimes it's completely random (Cory Monteith).
Still, it's kind of an imprint, isn't it. Whether you die alone or not.
posted by pleasebekind at 7:24 AM on June 29, 2015
I sometimes think about the last status updates of people who have died. Sometimes it's ominous or fitting (Leonard Nimoy) reading their last thought, and then sometimes it's completely random (Cory Monteith).
Still, it's kind of an imprint, isn't it. Whether you die alone or not.
posted by pleasebekind at 7:24 AM on June 29, 2015
The police then departed for the cemetery, where, because no family member had stepped forward to claim the body, they would intern Watanabe in an unmarked grave alongside the rest of Japan’s forgotten dead.
Talk about an unpaid internship.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:40 AM on June 29, 2015 [3 favorites]
Talk about an unpaid internship.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:40 AM on June 29, 2015 [3 favorites]
We had a neighbor that this happened to; she was found because we called the SPCA about her dogs barking nonstop for at least a day. The dogs had always barked at every car and pedestrian; I wonder how long they'd been getting noisier before we noticed. Neighborhood word-of-mouth was that she'd been gone between a week and a month when she was found. I never thought to feel bad for her; she seemed to be living the life she chose. I did feel bad about the dogs.
Folks in the neighborhood got more social after that, letting each other know when they'd be going on long trips, making an email group. She was found in September and the house has been cleaned, but not put on the market or moved into. I wonder how long that will take, and how much information the new owners will get.
posted by tchemgrrl at 9:59 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
Folks in the neighborhood got more social after that, letting each other know when they'd be going on long trips, making an email group. She was found in September and the house has been cleaned, but not put on the market or moved into. I wonder how long that will take, and how much information the new owners will get.
posted by tchemgrrl at 9:59 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
How utterly meaningless one person's life can be.
reminds me of this book review i recently heard about stoner by john williams: "The book is not actually about any kind of drug-fueled exploits. It is maybe the quietest and most restrained book I've ever read. It's about a man named William Stoner and the first couple of paragraphs essentially announce to the reader that he was an academic, studied medieval literature, and he taught for many years at the same school. He did not go off to World War I and become a war hero. He was not involved in any major intrigue. He was mostly a forgotten figure. He is a forgotten figure to his colleagues and his students. They don't think about him at all. It's the strangest opening to a novel that I've ever experienced. It's also completely hypnotic.
"What the book is about is one man's life and it really represents those of us who are really -- which is most of us -- who are going to be forgotten by history. And the message it sends is that if you pay really close attention to any life it is absolutely gripping. And that's the kind of book Stoner is.
"William Stoner suffers through a terrible marriage. He has a beautiful, amazing, rescuing love affair. He engages in an absolutely crazy, silly, passive-aggressive academic feud that really ruins his life for a number of years. And he grapples with trying to be a good parent. And all that Stoner is is really grabs him at the crucial moments in his life when he's having to make huge decisions that are going to change the course of his life and that deeply move him inside and really slows down during those moments. We see all the internal turmoil that it is to be a human being. Even a human being who is completely forgotten by history and not even that well regarded by his colleagues.
"And it's a really profound message because I think in this era especially we tend to think what makes something exciting is how famous you are, how much attention you're able to win from the world. That's what social media is all about, that's what so much of the media is about; how much attention can we suck from the world.
"Stoner is suggesting just the opposite. That what makes our lives blessed and holy and worth living is the attention we pay to our own lives and to those moments in our lives that are the most exciting, exalted, terrifying and beautiful. It's an amazing novel."
i haven't read any knausgaard or anything but the inconsequential everyman (woman?) redeemed by small kindnesses genre -- departures, ikiru, it's a wonderful life, suttree -- may be increasing in popularity?
The idea is not to avoid leaving a mess, but to avoid dying and not being noticed.
maybe a healthkit app like mydeathwatch or something? (with sticks of dynamite wrapped around your head! ;)
posted by kliuless at 1:49 PM on June 29, 2015 [6 favorites]
reminds me of this book review i recently heard about stoner by john williams: "The book is not actually about any kind of drug-fueled exploits. It is maybe the quietest and most restrained book I've ever read. It's about a man named William Stoner and the first couple of paragraphs essentially announce to the reader that he was an academic, studied medieval literature, and he taught for many years at the same school. He did not go off to World War I and become a war hero. He was not involved in any major intrigue. He was mostly a forgotten figure. He is a forgotten figure to his colleagues and his students. They don't think about him at all. It's the strangest opening to a novel that I've ever experienced. It's also completely hypnotic.
"What the book is about is one man's life and it really represents those of us who are really -- which is most of us -- who are going to be forgotten by history. And the message it sends is that if you pay really close attention to any life it is absolutely gripping. And that's the kind of book Stoner is.
"William Stoner suffers through a terrible marriage. He has a beautiful, amazing, rescuing love affair. He engages in an absolutely crazy, silly, passive-aggressive academic feud that really ruins his life for a number of years. And he grapples with trying to be a good parent. And all that Stoner is is really grabs him at the crucial moments in his life when he's having to make huge decisions that are going to change the course of his life and that deeply move him inside and really slows down during those moments. We see all the internal turmoil that it is to be a human being. Even a human being who is completely forgotten by history and not even that well regarded by his colleagues.
"And it's a really profound message because I think in this era especially we tend to think what makes something exciting is how famous you are, how much attention you're able to win from the world. That's what social media is all about, that's what so much of the media is about; how much attention can we suck from the world.
"Stoner is suggesting just the opposite. That what makes our lives blessed and holy and worth living is the attention we pay to our own lives and to those moments in our lives that are the most exciting, exalted, terrifying and beautiful. It's an amazing novel."
i haven't read any knausgaard or anything but the inconsequential everyman (woman?) redeemed by small kindnesses genre -- departures, ikiru, it's a wonderful life, suttree -- may be increasing in popularity?
The idea is not to avoid leaving a mess, but to avoid dying and not being noticed.
maybe a healthkit app like mydeathwatch or something? (with sticks of dynamite wrapped around your head! ;)
posted by kliuless at 1:49 PM on June 29, 2015 [6 favorites]
It's not the dying alone that bothers me so much, it's the idea that these deaths are so unnecessary. How many of them could have been prevented if the person could have gotten to a doctor, or cared for themselves better? These are things a community can help you with when you are old.
posted by chainsofreedom at 1:50 PM on June 29, 2015
posted by chainsofreedom at 1:50 PM on June 29, 2015
This makes these articles that crossed my desk today all more more alarming.
“Out to pasture,” The Economist, 27 June 2015
“Time to banish old people to the countryside?,” Amy Chavez, The Japan Times, 28 June 2015
posted by ob1quixote at 2:17 PM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
“Out to pasture,” The Economist, 27 June 2015
“Time to banish old people to the countryside?,” Amy Chavez, The Japan Times, 28 June 2015
Operation Obatsutayama is basically saying, “Hey old people! Move out to the countryside where you’ll have no friends or family! Do it for Tokyo.”Re "Obatsutayama" cf. The Ballad of Narayama by Keisuke Kinoshita.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:17 PM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
I read this article last night, and then rewatched Departures as an antidote.
posted by jilloftrades at 5:58 PM on June 29, 2015
posted by jilloftrades at 5:58 PM on June 29, 2015
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For a variety of reasons it hit me like a punch in the forehead when I first saw it, and it definitely helped me to live a different and better life. There really is a deep existential benefit to taking an unblinking look at the aftermath of unhappy, wasted, or just very unlucky lives.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:37 PM on June 28, 2015 [33 favorites]