Kathryn Schulz

It is a real sense that much of what makes life meaningful is absent from these places. There is a kind of cruelty at the end of life of all times to not be confronting beauty. I mean, I will never forget. I don't know how much of it he could take in, but I'll never forget turning on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in my father's hospital room because we felt like he loved music.

It is a real sense that much of what makes life meaningful is absent from these places. There is a kind of cruelty at the end of life of all times to not be confronting beauty. I mean, I will never forget. I don't know how much of it he could take in, but I'll never forget turning on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in my father's hospital room because we felt like he loved music.

He loved classical music and the urge to fill this incredibly sterile space with something awe-inspiring and overwhelming in its beauty was overwhelming within us in that moment. And, you know, we've recited in poetry for the same reason. On the one hand, look, I want to be incredibly clear. I'm profoundly grateful to the medical team who took care of my father at that moment and many others.

He loved classical music and the urge to fill this incredibly sterile space with something awe-inspiring and overwhelming in its beauty was overwhelming within us in that moment. And, you know, we've recited in poetry for the same reason. On the one hand, look, I want to be incredibly clear. I'm profoundly grateful to the medical team who took care of my father at that moment and many others.

And so I don't mean to suggest there's not a reason these places are the way they are and that acts of incredible courage and grace and beauty don't happen there. They do every single day. But when you are there every single day for a long period of time, you also feel their kind of...

And so I don't mean to suggest there's not a reason these places are the way they are and that acts of incredible courage and grace and beauty don't happen there. They do every single day. But when you are there every single day for a long period of time, you also feel their kind of...

emotional thinness you know that the life is so abundant we'll talk about abundance i hope at some point here but life is is so rich and wonderful and varied and not abundance as we mean it on my podcast to be honest well sure but um so much of that is forcibly kept at bay in a hospital and you're right one once more for the sick and the dying i'd like to ask you to read a passage it's one of my favorite in your book it's on page six sure

emotional thinness you know that the life is so abundant we'll talk about abundance i hope at some point here but life is is so rich and wonderful and varied and not abundance as we mean it on my podcast to be honest well sure but um so much of that is forcibly kept at bay in a hospital and you're right one once more for the sick and the dying i'd like to ask you to read a passage it's one of my favorite in your book it's on page six sure

For a while after my father died, I could not stop seeing the world as it really is, marked everywhere by the evidence of past losses and the imminence of future ones. This was not because his death was a tragedy. My father died peacefully at 74, tended throughout his final weeks by those he loved most. It was because his death was not a tragedy.

For a while after my father died, I could not stop seeing the world as it really is, marked everywhere by the evidence of past losses and the imminence of future ones. This was not because his death was a tragedy. My father died peacefully at 74, tended throughout his final weeks by those he loved most. It was because his death was not a tragedy.

What shocked me was that something so sad could be the normal, necessary way of things. In its aftermath, each individual life seemed to contain too much heartbreak for its fleeting duration. History, which I had always loved, even in its silences and mysteries, suddenly seemed like little more than a record of loss on an epic scale, especially where it could offer no record at all.

What shocked me was that something so sad could be the normal, necessary way of things. In its aftermath, each individual life seemed to contain too much heartbreak for its fleeting duration. History, which I had always loved, even in its silences and mysteries, suddenly seemed like little more than a record of loss on an epic scale, especially where it could offer no record at all.

The world itself seemed ephemeral, glaciers and species and ecosystems vanishing, the pace of change as swift as in a time-lapse, as if those of us alive today had been permitted to see it from the harrowing perspective of eternity. Everything felt fragile. Everything felt vulnerable.

The world itself seemed ephemeral, glaciers and species and ecosystems vanishing, the pace of change as swift as in a time-lapse, as if those of us alive today had been permitted to see it from the harrowing perspective of eternity. Everything felt fragile. Everything felt vulnerable.

The idea of loss pressed in all around me, like a hidden order to existence that emerged only in the presence of grief.

The idea of loss pressed in all around me, like a hidden order to existence that emerged only in the presence of grief.

It's so funny. Is it a more honest perspective of the world? It is certainly accurate by many lights. Loss is omnipresent. We will die. The people we love will die. The things we build in the grand scheme of things, even in the medium scheme of things, are relatively transient and fleeting.

It's so funny. Is it a more honest perspective of the world? It is certainly accurate by many lights. Loss is omnipresent. We will die. The people we love will die. The things we build in the grand scheme of things, even in the medium scheme of things, are relatively transient and fleeting.

There are times in life when the omnipresence and the scale of this loss do become profoundly visible to us, at least to me. I think a lot about scale, right? And if you dwell on the scale of the world, let alone the scale of the cosmos... Our lives are stunningly short. They seem or can seem stunningly insignificant. And this sense that everything around us is terrifyingly fragile is accurate.

There are times in life when the omnipresence and the scale of this loss do become profoundly visible to us, at least to me. I think a lot about scale, right? And if you dwell on the scale of the world, let alone the scale of the cosmos... Our lives are stunningly short. They seem or can seem stunningly insignificant. And this sense that everything around us is terrifyingly fragile is accurate.