Akshay answers “I remember when you couldn't talk about...”

Mischelle Smith asked this question about Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death:

I remember when you couldn't talk about cancer. Then you shouldn't talk about sex. Also, never talk about race. It seems the topic of death, is in that "no talk" zone. If everyone will die, why isn't there more talk about death and the practices around it?

Akshay Kumar Singh Looking at other answers : talking about death is taboo is many other countries as well. Hell, funeral parlors and your specific wishes for burial etc…moreLooking at other answers : talking about death is taboo is many other countries as well. Hell, funeral parlors and your specific wishes for burial etc are much more common in US (and the West) than in Asia. You'd be called morbid and shunned if you were to bring something like that up in India, for instance.

To the original question - I guess its to do with the immense difficulty people have in accepting and dealing with death. Look at death with the lens of other topics that were taboo and hard to understand in the past - AIDS and homosexuality come to mind. As awareness around these grew, so did social movements to embrace LGBTQ+, for instance. With death, however, there is very little people still know or wonder about, other than those in the academic or professional field. For a normal bloke, the shock of losing someone always supersedes the actual thing. (less)

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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death

by Caitlin Doughty

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