Death Trips | Ann Neumann

Some people prefer dying along.

To ward off the specter of elder isolation, we are redoubling our faith in individualism, strangely enough—or more precisely, our conviction that what you choose will be your fate. Bad personal choices get you a lonely death. Good personal choices, on the other hand, get you something like “The Death of Socrates,” that painting by Jacques-Louis David in which attendants throng around the deathbed, contorting their bodies in energetic devotion. (The hemlock may have been bitter, but at least he felt the love.) 

Feats of self-improvement are what will put you on the path to a worthy end—and these days, those feats include spending money on the very thing that our new service economy is keenest to offer you: customized experiences. A doula-assisted death is a bespoke affair. Through made-to-order rituals, your death can be propelled into the realm of the unique, just like everyone else’s.

Death Trips | Ann Neumann