Some ticos speaking about death.
A write up of Segundo Death Cafe, Costa Rica
Last Saturday 13, we started our session around 15:10h, in a lovely cafeteria named Cabra Negra (Black Goat). We expected a little bit more people, but in the end we were seven. Also our cake had some serious typos. Anyway, it was an amazing time.
We tried the same structure we did last time: first, each participant introduced themselves and explained why they had an interest in the topic of death; then we have an open and free discussion.
We order some coffee and started. The introduction part was quicker than we expected, and the reasons were diverse. There was, for example, a person who felt bad about not being able to be on her grandmother’s death, other whose main reason was to think that actually dying means not being able to left something to be remembered by, and so on.
Because the introduction was so swift, we didn’t cut the cake right away. We started the discussion. The first topic was if the right approach to our own mortality was a stoic acceptance or a fiery struggle against it in a way of embracing life. There were diverse positions about that, including that to die might be inevitable, but to accept every death as such is just coward; other was that both stoic acceptance and fiery struggle are part of our daily lives. Then we had an interlude as the huge chocolate cake that was shaped like a graveyard was served in plates.
We had some brief conversation themes like how the corpse is such a powerful symbol through human history, and experiences of touching death people that some assistants had had. Other was the need for being empathetic as a bond between humanity, but also that being empathetic should have its limits in order to protect ourselves. This led us to speak about different professions that were near to death or pain.
Finally, we talked about how suicide and nihilism became fashionable and funny in the internet during the last year and some hypothesis about the implications this has in modern culture and the reasons behind it. The thought was funny for us, but then concern arose around the vulnerable people who may take it too seriously and actually kill themselves.
Two hours or so had passed and most of the group had to leave. We finished the session and left pretty happy with how things went, glad with our second experience… and also with a lot of extra cake.