James Sexton

Like I'm very comfortable around death.

I've spent a lot of time with death.

And I see it, like we've done a terrible disservice to people by distracting them and hiding death from them.

Like we live in a world where death is just, it happens behind closed doors and you don't get to see it.

How many times you've been in a room when someone died?

Like I've been in a room a lot of times when people die.

Like I was a vigil volunteer for a number of years.

Why seek that out?

It's the most life-affirming experience I think you could have.

It's incredible.

It's an incredible reminder of, I think that our society is designed to distract you from the fact that you're gonna die.

Because if you thought really and internalized the fact that you're going to die, you wouldn't pay attention to the meaningless shit that keeps the machine moving.

Like you would just stop buying a lot of what they're selling.

I think that we deny death because it's a great mystery.

We're terrified of it.

And we culturally just reaffirm it over and over by hiding it from people.

Here's a hot take.

I think when you turn 18, you should have to do a year or two of mandatory hospice volunteering.

I think if you spent time with the terminally ill when you were 18, 19 years old, it changed my entire way of viewing the world.

Yeah, you just realize that just there's so much of this shit doesn't matter.