“I, Too, Will Die”

Kevin Quiles offers an interesting assessment of the care industry as it pertains to the denial of death. An excerpt:

Raw existentialism says that death will come to all and in spite of ALL we do to try to stop it. Do all that you can to alter unwanted conditions. There will still come an end. But healthcare and mental health professionals are slow to arrive at this sobering truth. To do so they must intentionally convert it into more personal terms: “I, too, will die.” However, this demands that they relinquish not solution-oriented models per se but the façade of omnipotence to fix. Sophisticated minds, be it in white coats or in work attire behind a desk, have found a way to prevent personal death awareness from seeping into consciousness while helping patients. Neglecting their own application of impermanence, the message now reads: “They die; we don’t.”

The entire piece appeared on the Denial File, a part of the Ernest Becker Foundation,