101

Hello. Thanks for coming, and welcome to my notebook.

I hope you find some of this information useful. Before I go any further, I just wanted to be clear about what you'll find here, and what you won't.

Years ago I got interested in the study of Death. It's one of the most important topics we'll ever face in the entirety of our existence, and yet we shy away from it so quickly, or we find neat boxes to put it in: this is Portrayals of Death in Visual Art, this is Psychology of Dying, this is That Scary High School Health Class. Comparatively few people seem to want to approach the topic head on, on its own terms. Particularly in America, where Death doesn't really fit in with most of our narratives about how our lives are going to be. I'm looking forward to the entry I write on Healthcare, and in particular the character of "Grandma," who, despite all the rhetoric about whether she has private or public insurance, is still going to die.

There is so much to learn: about Death, from Death. By my count, it's one of three experiences all humans will go through (birth and breath being the other two). We've dismissed so many of the mysteries and the stark realities surrounding Death, when we need to be confronting those mysteries and realities the same way we confront the inside of an atom or the medical promises of a jungle flower, or religion, or literature, or our own minds. This is how I want to treat Death: as a mystery to be investigated, instead of a taboo topic at the dinner table, or an exotic romp into the latest gore-filled fantasy. I want to understand Death on its own terms.

So this is a record of my research into the subject of Death, and how we make sense out of it. For lack of a better term, I'm calling it "Death Studies," because if there was a Masters in Death Studies out there, I'd sign up for it. I picture it as a text-based program that touches on several disciplines while belonging to none of them. Sadly, it doesn't exist, so this is my approximation of it. What follows is an investigation of the "texts" of Death, which will include everything from religious traditions to public policy to personal experiences. While I'll touch on how major academic fields deal with Death (Psychology and Anthropology stand out as ones I feel like I'll dip into often), these are not the "texts" I'm primarily interested in.

Here're some things this notebook is not:

-A Scholarly Journal. This is a notebook I'm sharing with you, that will include what I find as I investigate something I'm interested in. I'm not writing this to claim authority, I'm writing this to instill curiosity.

-A Gothic Doomfest. I have nothing against the Goth movement, but I'm simply interested in the pursuit of new information, not appealing to any one subculture over another. I'd like to think my findings will produce some kind of hope in the reader, regardless, even if it's a bittersweet hope.

-Necromancy. I'm not interested in talking to the dead. I'm looking forward to writing an entry about how mediums are con-artists, and have been for thousands of years.

-A Ghost-Hunters Guide. I'll definitely be investigating Ghosts, but more for what it says about the people who see them.