HW 52

Book: Curtains by Tom Jokinen


Precis:
Funerals are all about putting the people at peace and make them comfortable. So the funeral business has to work with different religions because religion is important to many people and they have different practices. It isn't that different though because they all are set up to protect the people from getting too emotionally hurt from death. Keep in mind the funeral business is a business though and they make money off all these practices that help people feel better.

Quotes:
"It all starts to sound like a fairy tale, Rena said. At least religious faith, when it comes to death, is a fairy tale that soothes. It doesn't deny there's a monster in the closet or a wolf in the woods, but it tames them."

"All religions, says Solomon, have one thing in common: some belief that is in violation of natural law. The Christian resurrection, the Hindu belief in reincarnation are "facts"for which the the empirical evidence is still pending."

"If we think that we just disappear - snap, lights out - we'd never get any work done, either at the office or in benefit of the gene pool."

Analysis:
I found this last section of the book very interesting but sad at the same time. The way it talks about how society and religion shapes our ways for dealing with death I found really interesting because it explained the reasons instead of just talking about the practices. I also found it sad because the way it made me feel was that we're kind of lying to ourselves and not embracing death for what we know it really is. Our way of living is set up so we can make more meaning to our lives and get work done. I would want to live in a way where you don't have to just think about getting work done but you can really embrace that your time here is limited and you should do what you want to and find what makes you happy. I don't know if I'm just rambling but it made me feel like we're machines and we are being programed to think about stuff a certain way so the world can get work out of us. I also so a lot of the business part of funerals which I also found sad, because it seems like everyone out there's a leech trying to suck the most money out of you.. And especially because death is such a difficult thing to deal with. I connected this to the Food unit from earlier in the year. I connected the two because I got the same feeling from both about the people in the business, they seem like they're just out to make money off of you. The food business knows that you're going to need to eat food and want the cheap and quick food, and the business for funerals know that you're going to have loved ones dying and you're going to follow traditions and want to pay respect to the dead person. They seem like things that are inevitable and there aren't very easy ways out of them.