Mia's episode is the heart of this one: grief as love's shadow, closure as an illusion, and how little ritual we have for death. Ian's question about dying complete tonight belongs here too.
Where it comes up 12
Within this theme 121
Ideas 31
- Ghosting
Being cut off by friends without explanation or closure. Tamir explores it in two episodes through Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki.
- Big Questions in Fiction
Logan's diagnosis of contemporary fiction: writers with comfortable Western lives lack the hard experiences (wars, whaling ships) that drove the classics, so big questions of life, death…
- From Mourner to Investigator
The shift Mia sees in grief when the mourner starts investigating, Sherlock Holmes style, the person lost or why they left (as in the Murakami novel, or her own urge to call her partner 20…
- Gnosticism
Tamir's 'thought experiment': unlike the Judeo-Christian view of a perfect world and imperfect humans with a divine spark, Gnostic mythology holds that creation on Earth was a cosmic…
- Limbo between life and death
Salih sees Murakami's other world as a neutral zone between life and death where the body can do impossible things and body and mind separate, so a person loses what they stand for…
- Death Salon
Gatherings, also called death cafes, where strangers talk about grief, death and loss and share book excerpts and poetry. Mia borrowed the term from a Brooklyn therapist and is piloting…
- Dying Complete
A frame Ian teaches. Don't ask whether you'll die complete in 60 years. Ask what you'd need to do today to die complete if tonight were your last night. It shrinks what matters down to a…
- Five Stages of Grief
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, known 'since at least the 60s.' Mia stresses they are nonlinear: you can be in denial for five seconds and in anger for the rest of your…
- Bardo States
From the Tibetan tradition, the intermediate states a soul passes through after death, which depend on how one dies. Mia describes monks commanding their bodies to die while family pray…
- Bargaining (Grief)
Mia's definition: bargaining is the investigator mode ('why them, why not me', 'what were their last wishes'). Disputes over wills are unprocessed bargaining, and so are decisions people…
- Closure Is an Illusion
Mia's claim that closure doesn't exist; what people actually seek is the inner power to say 'enough, I'm done, I'm putting that to bed.'
- Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy
The focus of Mia's Harvard research and future vision: psychedelic-assisted therapy 'voyages' for grief. She notes initiatives using MDMA to mediate conflict between Israelis and…
- Samsara
The cycle of rebirth and worldly existence in Hindu thought.
- Secular Ritual Gap
Religious death rituals (Tibetan bardo prayers, Jewish psalms, Irish wakes) have no analog in secular culture beyond the funeral, Tamir notes, and Mia's gatherings try to fill that gap.
- Ayahuasca
Psychedelic brew used in ceremonies in which Mia felt she communicated with her late mother; her first experience brought the message 'let me go.'
- Grief as Love's Shadow
The episode's central image: grief is love's shadow or ghost, so like love it is a unique thumbprint, inherently personal and subjective, and possibly spiritual in nature.
- Holding Space
Being a 'clean mirror' who listens, observes and asks questions without shock or judgment, as Mia defines it. She argues most people outsource their therapy to hairstylists and Uber drivers…
- GRF Methodology
Mia's grief methodology, developed as a response to the five stages of grief, which she uses at grief dinner parties and death salons and will unveil in full in her memoir, with exercises…
- Hierarchy of Grief
Tamir asks whether there is an objective hierarchy of grief: sudden death versus prolonged illness, suffering plus death as the ultimate tragedy (as in Holocaust stories). Mia answers that…
- Peacekeeper Archetype
The diplomat or ambassador archetype Mia says a grief guide must tune into to find common ground among Christians, Muslims and others: the shared fact that none of us knows what happens…
- Song of Ascents
A group of Psalms that Tamir says are recited during the seven days of Jewish mourning at the family's home; his example of religious death ritual that has no secular counterpart.
- Unprocessed Grief
Mia argues much Western addiction, substance abuse, PTSD, depression, anxiety and even physical disease is unprocessed grief, because we say goodbye to things all the time without actually…
- Altars and Grief Objects
Physical shrines to grief, such as Mia's family leaving her mother's clothes untouched for a decade. Impractical as use of space, but nobody calls an altar inefficient; Tamir likens them to…
- Biopsychosocial Grief
Mia's point that grief is shaped not only by the relationship but by your biology, psychology and social state when the loss happens (hormones, mindset, addiction), so the same loss can be…
- Plant trees whose shade you'll never see
The proverb, usually given as Greek, that society grows great when people plant trees whose shade they'll never sit in. Colin, paraphrasing and unsure of the source, uses it to argue that…
- WWII trauma in Murakami
Salih argues that unexplained events like the children collapsing in Kafka on the Shore, Lieutenant Mamiya's war, and figures like Colonel Sanders are Murakami processing Japan's war trauma…
- Death practice
Tamir and Samantha wonder what it would be like if our relationship to death were like waking up from a dream. Tamir says a death practice comes late in the journey and many never get to…
- Dying at 30, buried at 80
Saying used by both speakers for people who stop truly living because they lack a vision for their life.
- Shiva
The seven-day Jewish mourning period at the bereaved family's home that Tamir describes (not named on air).
- Irish Wake
A tradition that turns death into a celebration of life. Tamir finds it hard to reconcile, since every funeral he's attended has been solemn.
- Legacy
What you leave behind and what people say about you; Ian uses it as a compass for daily priorities.
Books 18
- Kafka on the Shore
Murakami novel featuring the elderly Nakata and Colonel Sanders as a pimp. It is Salih's favorite Murakami; Tamir finds it 'an onslaught of weird' and recommends it only to die-hard fans.
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Murakami novel about a man abruptly cut off by his four best friends, each named for a color, who years later goes on a 'pilgrimage' to ask why. Tamir uses it in two episodes to talk about…
- Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war novel, whose protagonist lives through the firebombing of Dresden.
- Makers of Empire
Prose-poem about dreamers as 'the architects of greatness' whose visions outlast crumbling empires; Tamir reads it aloud and it frames the episode's question of reconciling greatness with…
- The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Murakami novel expanding a 1980s story, his first in six years and a kind of sequel to Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Its English edition was due out on November 19, 2024.
- Meditations
Marcus Aurelius's Stoic classic, which Tamir reaches for in three episodes.
- The Grief Trip
Mia's memoir in progress about losing her mother and her psychedelic journey with that loss; the centerpiece of her work, unveiling her methodology. She is seeking an agent and hopes for a…
- A Grief Observed
Lewis's account of grieving his wife, the love of his life. Tamir reads the opening ('No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear...') because grief, like love, is crazy-making and…
- Norwegian Wood
Murakami novel that Tamir notes is his only one without magic realism. It is Grant's favorite Murakami and makes Salih's top five.
- Psalms
Tamir describes reciting the Songs of Ascents from the Psalms, traditionally attributed to King David, at the mourners' home for seven days after a Jewish death.
- The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The book Mia actually draws on (correcting herself from the Book of the Dead) when she teaches grievers about the bardo states and how Tibetan lives are ended.
- Childhood (Hesse poem)
Poem Tamir reads ('My farthest valley... O dark gate, O dark hour of death, come forth') about longing for death as a return home to one's dreams; Mia hears in it someone letting themselves…
- Tibetan Book of the Dead
Mia first names it before clarifying she means the similar Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.
- Tony Takitani
Murakami short story, one of Salih's favorites ('a pretty messed up story', Tamir agrees); also adapted into a film the two discuss.
- Consolation to Helvia
Seneca's letter from exile to his mother telling her not to weep for him, which Tamir brings up as Stoic consolation in practice.
- Poems (Hermann Hesse)
Hesse's well-known poetry collection in a bilingual edition (German on the left, English on the right) that Tamir reads from.
- Tokyo Ueno Station
Novel narrated by the ghost of a homeless man in Tokyo whose family has died, struggling to reconcile the point of his existence. Tamir reads a passage asking whether death is where time…
- Book of Jonah
Jonah in the belly of the whale appears in the Murakami passage Tamir reads, as an image of Tsukuru having fallen into the bowels of death.
People 15
- Tamir Barzilai
Host of the Nectar of Time podcast and founder of a software company; he runs the Vancouver studio where the show is recorded. A Murakami devotee, he came back to fiction through a…
- Haruki Murakami
Japanese novelist and Tamir's favorite author, whose books brought him back to fiction during a pandemic book club. He comes up in most episodes and is the subject of the episode with Salih…
- Carl Jung
Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology. His idea of the shadow runs through many episodes, and Tamir sees his influence in both Hesse and Murakami.
- Mia Cosco
Research assistant at Harvard working on psychedelic research, specifically how psychedelics can help with grief; hosts grief dinner parties, death salons and death cafes, and is writing a…
- Hermann Hesse
German-Swiss novelist, author of Siddhartha and Steppenwolf. Tamir counts him among his favorite writers, and his books stand for the philosophical fiction Tamir read before turning to…
- Seneca
Roman Stoic philosopher and author of the Consolation to Helvia, whom Tamir quotes in three episodes.
- Ernest Hemingway
Novelist, author of The Sun Also Rises. He comes up for his spare style and for the hard experience behind his work.
- C.S. Lewis
Author of the Narnia books and science fiction whose nonfiction Tamir has recently started reading; his memoir of losing his wife gives the episode its line that grief feels like fear.
- J. R. R. Tolkien
Novelist and philologist, author of The Lord of the Rings.
- Marc Harris Silverman
Sheela's first husband, whom she still calls by his sannyas name Chinmaya ('Shin Maya' in the captions). They met at school in the US; he had Hodgkin's disease and was given a year and a…
- Gautama Buddha
Spiritual teacher and founder of Buddhism, mentioned in three episodes.
- Al Pacino
Tamir recalls Pacino's speech in Any Given Sunday about how, as you get older, things get taken from you, as a parallel to Murakami's pinball metaphor of loss.
- Benjamin Franklin
Tamir attributes to him (unsure whether it was Franklin or Disraeli) the line that most men die at 30 but aren't buried until 80, used as a motif for living without a vision.
- Yu Miri
Japanese-Korean author of Tokyo Ueno Station, which Tamir reads from as a meditation on grief.
- Brian Johnson
Mentioned as the person closest to chasing an immortality formula, in the aside that life is a game nobody wins in the end.
Quotes 7
Closure is kind of an illusion, which is a terrible thing to say to some people, but closure is really an illusion. What people are really seeking with closure is the power within to just say, okay, enough, I'm done, I'm putting that to bed.
Curiosity is an ascension from depression. Even if you just have the motivation for one more breath or one more moment, that's better than just being like, I want to end it all.
We don't know what happens when we die. But imagine if the experience or relationship we had to death was like waking up.
If my head were to hit the pillow tonight, lights were out, that was it. What would I have to do today so that I could die complete tonight?
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.
Grief is crazy making. So is love. Love is crazy making, at the risk of sounding like a pop song.
Silence still means you're participating, because even if you're just energetically participating, you're still there, you're still present. You don't have to be saying anything to be present.
Insights 15
- Fiction can process collective trauma
Murakami's unexplained wartime incidents and Western mascots can be read as a nation processing war trauma through symbols, just as Germany still processes its history.
- Limbo separates body from mind
Murakami's other world is a limbo between life and death where body and mind split, and a person who loses that unity loses what they stand for.
- Grief is not only about death
We grieve lost friendships, ghostings, divorces, pets and miscarriages (the hopes and dreams planted in a future), not just the dead.
- There's nothing new under the sun
Your love and grief are unique, but they are functions of a human nature written about endlessly, so books, even obscure ones by unknown authors, can hand you tools others already used to…
- Unite on not knowing
With mourners of different faiths, the common ground isn't doctrine but the fact that none of us actually knows what happens after we die. Mia doesn't dispute anyone's truth.
- Control can be grief in disguise
Rigid structure, narrow-mindedness and a need to control everything can be a child's defense against grief that hasn't been dealt with internally.
- Decisions made for the dead can breed resentment
Acting on a dead person's wishes can be courageous or a way to dodge responsibility. Whether it lasts depends on how aware you are of the part of you that is choosing.
- Every belief about death is a choice
Faced with death's cliff, everyone picks a mythology to make sense of it. Even atheism is a decision about what to believe.
- Grief cannot be prescribed
Because grief is as personal as the love it reflects, no one can set a time limit or tell another person where to draw the line. Mia still feels a pull to a mother she barely knew, decades…
- Religious war is trauma at scale
Wars over religion are the ego shielding people from facing the truth of death. Facing it risks a downward spiral but carries the seed of something new, if you're brave enough to jump.
- Sadness is part of love; suffering is optional
Sheela admits there were sad moments after the falling out with Bhagwan, but calls them 'also part of love'. She accepted them graciously and let thoughts and feelings leave as they came…
- Secular culture lacks death rituals
Religions give mourners structured practices (bardo prayers, psalms for seven days, wakes), while secular culture has only the funeral and worries about wills and costs.
- Curiosity both heals and haunts
Investigating a loss can lift you out of depression, but without a clear answer it becomes a Gordian knot that tightens the more you look, a chase after an apparition. Be clear about what…
- The stages of grief are nonlinear
You can spend five seconds in denial and a lifetime in anger, or jump straight to bargaining. Cerebral, fix-it people often go straight to bargaining.
- Your state shapes your grief
Grief depends not only on the relationship lost but on your hormones, mindset and habits when the loss lands. The same blow can be survivable at one stage of life and devastating at another.
Practices 11
- Grief Dinner Parties
Mia's first pilot of grief support groups: hosting dinners in her West Point Grey home where people cook, eat and share their innermost pain, because 'we heal in a field of connection' and…
- Die complete tonight
Ask each day: what would I need to do today so I could die complete tonight? Orient the arc of the day around those few things. Ian's answer: undivided presence with his wife, time in…
- Choose your goodbyes
Actively choose each goodbye ('this I'm choosing, and this too') instead of letting losses happen to you, so grief doesn't go unprocessed.
- Letting the Wanting Rest
Like a watched kettle, desire (including the longing to reunite with someone who died) eases when you wish for it and then let the wanting rest for a while, rather than clutching at it.
- Write your own eulogy
Skip the self-help books, sit for an hour and write what you want people to say about you when you die, then derive what you must do every day to build that legacy, and do it.
- Die Complete Tonight
Ask yourself: if my head hit the pillow tonight and that was it, what would I need to do today to die complete? Use the answer to cut your priorities down to the one or two things that…
- Honor the dead by not fighting the living
When there's no will or the wishes are unclear, the best way to honor someone is not to fight with the people still living, and to ask what they would want for you.
- Talk to your younger self
When old anger flares, Mia addresses her teenage self directly ('Mia, I hear you, I get it') and asks who she is really trying to prove herself to.
- Clarify what you're curious about
Before investigating a loss or ghosting, get clear on what you really want: the truth, someone's perspective, or permission to move on, and ask whether you could go on never getting over it.
- Death and deathbed visualizations
Guided meditations Ian runs with his men's groups: facing death, picturing yourself in the hospital bed in your last moments (who is around you, what they say), and imagining what cards…
- Let feelings come and go
When painful events come, accept them graciously, let thoughts and feelings arrive and leave on their own, and keep love where it belongs, in your heart.
Stories 16
- Grandfather's two pieces of advice
Colin's father died when he was two, and his grandfather looked after him until he was about nine. On a walk shortly before he died, his grandfather stopped and told him: don't ever grow…
- Ryan Holiday on the Oracle
Tamir happened to be studying the Oracle of Delphi when Ryan Holiday spoke in Vancouver and told how a philosopher asked the Oracle for the best source of wisdom and was told 'the dead'…
- Leaving Bhagwan with tears in her eyes
When Sheela decided to leave Bhagwan, members of her commune 'family' begged her to stay, reminding her of everything she had and all the work she had put in. Tears ran down her face as she…
- Mother's message: let me go
On her first ayahuasca ceremony, Mia felt her mother tell her 'let me go': stop thinking about what I want and live your life. It was hard because she didn't know who she was outside 'the…
- Sad goodbye to the shadow
Salih read Hard-Boiled Wonderland in winter and was left sad and melancholic by the shadow's hard goodbye at the end. Tamir reads the passage aloud and Salih recalls the narrator staring at…
- Seneca's consolations amid tragedy
Tamir recounts that Seneca lost family members, was exiled and eventually killed by Nero, yet made consolation his role, writing to the bereaved and telling his mother from exile not to…
- Tamir can't answer 'die complete'
Asked what he'd need to do today to die complete tonight, Tamir says his brain 'produces an error code'. So much of his life is spent on future business goals and visions that today feels…
- Angry teen chasing rejection
In high school Mia was furious at her mother for 'giving up' and being 'weak'. Raised by an emotionally shut-down father, she did eight school plays, modeled and went to constant auditions…
- Arguing a dying man into love
Sheela's first husband, Chinmaya, had Hodgkin's disease and a year and a half to live, so he refused to get involved with her because it would be unfair to her. Both loved logic, so she…
- Calling her partner twenty times
Mia's relationship is securely attached, but if her partner doesn't say goodbye in his usual way and something feels hidden, she might call him 20 times: 'me going from investigator before…
- Divorcing couple at grief group
The quietest attendees shock Mia most. People going through divorce have brought their ex-spouse to discuss it together in the group, with tears, screaming and yelling.
- Borrowing death salons from Brooklyn
Mia didn't coin 'death salon': she hit it off with a Brooklyn therapist who co-hosts them, gathering strangers to share grief, book excerpts and poetry. Mia has since moved to Boston to…
- Childhood control as coping
From seven to about thirteen, Mia coped with her mother's death by becoming 'incredibly OCD', planning every minute and acting as 'the woman of the house' and master of her domain. Later…
- Losing her mother at seven
Mia lost her mother at seven. She doesn't remember her voice, laugh or favorite color and barely knew her, yet still feels a strong, 'spooky' connection to her, which is why she won't tell…
- Mother's clothes left for ten years
Mia's family left her mother's clothes hanging untouched in the closet for at least ten years: 'a physical depiction of grief', honoring her despite knowing she would never come home.
- Newly orphaned adult: want to dance?
When someone arrives saying both parents died tragically and they are now an adult orphan, Mia meets whatever energy they want ('do you want to dance? let's do this') or stays solemn…
Films, music and art 7
- Eli
Colin's award-winning short film, based on a Holocaust survivor he met. As a boy in Hungary in the summer of 1944 the man was separated from his mother and little brother at Mengele's…
- After Life
Ricky Gervais's series about a man grieving his late wife. Colin recalls a woman telling him that happiness is a great thing even if it isn't yours, and a line about planting trees whose…
- The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien's novel.
- Interstellar
Christopher Nolan's film, built on time dilation and a father and daughter separated across time.
- Any Given Sunday
Football film whose Al Pacino locker-room speech Tamir recalls: as you get older, things get taken from you, and you only realize it with age.
- Face to Face (Carl Jung interview)
1959 BBC interview in which Carl Jung discusses death as psychologically as important as birth; a clip from it opens the episode.
- Succession
Mia calls it a great show but uses it to typify how the West approaches death through inheritance ('how much money am I getting?') rather than ritual.
Organizations and movements 1
- Harvard University
Where Mia works as a research assistant on psychedelic research into grief.