When I die, I would like for my body to be laid out to be eaten by animals. Having your body laid out to be eaten by animals is not for everyone.
Kada umrem, volela bih da se moje telo položi da ga pojedu životinje. Izlaganje tela da ga pojedu životinje nije za svakoga.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Maybe you have already had the end-of-life talk with your family and decided on, I don't know, cremation. And in the interest of full disclosure, what I am proposing for my dead body is not strictly legal at the moment, but it's not without precedent.
Možda ste već razgovarali sa svojom porodicom o kraju života i odlučili se, šta znam, za kremaciju. Zarad potpunog razotkrivanja, ono što predlažem za svoje mrtvo telo trenutno nije baš legalno, ali nije bez presedana.
We've been laying out our dead for all of human history; it's call exposure burial. In fact, it's likely happening right now as we speak. In the mountainous regions of Tibet, they practice "sky burial," a ritual where the body is left to be consumed by vultures. In Mumbai, in India, those who follow the Parsi religion put their dead in structures called "Towers of Silence." These are interesting cultural tidbits, but they just haven't really been that popular in the Western world -- they're not what you'd expect.
Polagali smo svoje mrtve kroz čitavu ljudsku istoriju; to se zove sahranjivanje izlaganjem. Zapravo, verovatno je da se dešava upravo sada dok govorimo. U planinskim područjima Tibeta primenjuju „nebeske sahrane“, ritual gde se telo ostavlja da ga pojedu lešinari. U Mumbaju u Indiji, sledbenici parsijske vere stavljaju svoje mrtve u strukture zvane „kule tišine“. Ovo su zanimljive kulturološke poslastice, ali prosto nisu toliko popularne u zapadnom svetu; nisu ono što biste očekivali.
In America, our death traditions have come to be chemical embalming, followed by burial at your local cemetery, or, more recently, cremation. I myself, am a recent vegetarian, which means I spent the first 30 years or so of my life frantically inhaling animals -- as many as I could get my hands on. Why, when I die, should they not have their turn with me?
U Americi, naše tradicije vezane za smrt svode se na balsamovanje hemikalijama, zatim, sahranu na lokalnom groblju, i, u skorije vreme, kremaciju. Ja sam od nedavno vegetarijanac, što znači da sam provela prvih tridesetak godina života u pomahnitalom gutanju životinja - koliko god sam mogla. Zašto ne bi bio njihov red da navale na mene kada umrem?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Am I not an animal? Biologically speaking, are we not all, in this room, animals? Accepting the fact that we are animals has some potentially terrifying consequences. It means accepting that we are doomed to decay and die, just like any other creature on earth.
Zar ja nisam životinja? Biološki govoreći, zar nismo svi mi u ovoj prostoriji životinje? Prihvatanje činjenice da smo svi životinje ima potencijalno zastrašujuće posledice. To podrazumeva prihvatanje da smo osuđeni da istrulimo i umremo, kao i sva druga stvorenja na planeti.
For the last nine years, I've worked in the funeral industry, first as a crematory operator, then as a mortician and most recently, as the owner of my own funeral home. And I have some good news: if you're looking to avoid the whole "doomed to decay and die" thing: you will have all the help in the world in that avoidance from the funeral industry.
Proteklih devet godina radim u pogrebnoj delatnosti, najpre kao rukovodilac krematorijuma, zatim kao pogrebnik, i od nedavno kao vlasnik sopstvene firme za pogrebne usluge. Imam dobre vesti. Ako želite da izbegnete sve to sa „osuđenošću na trulež i smrt“, imaćete svu pomoć ovog sveta u tom izbegavanju od pogrebnih usluga.
It's a multi-billion-dollar industry, and its economic model is based on the principle of protection, sanitation and beautification of the corpse. Whether they mean to or not, the funeral industry promotes this idea of human exceptionalism. It doesn't matter what it takes, how much it costs, how bad it is for the environment, we're going to do it because humans are worth it! It ignores the fact that death can be an emotionally messy and complex affair, and that there is beauty in decay -- beauty in the natural return to the earth from whence we came. Now, I don't want you to get me wrong -- I absolutely understand the importance of ritual, especially when it comes to the people that we love. But we have to be able to create and practice this ritual without harming the environment, which is why we need new options.
To je industrija vredna više milijardi dolara, a njen ekonomski model zasnovan je na principu očuvanja, dezinfekcije i ulepšavanja leša. Nameravala to ili ne, pogrebna delatnost podstiče ideju o ljudskoj izuzetnosti. Nebitno je šta je potrebno, koliko košta, koliko je štetno za životnu sredinu, učinićemo to jer su ljudi vredni toga! Ignoriše se činjenica da smrt može biti emocionalno haotična i složena stvar, kao i da ima lepote u propadanju - lepote u prirodnom povratku zemlji iz koje smo potekli. Ne bih da me pogrešno shvatite - potpuno razumem važnost rituala, naročito kada se radi o ljudima koje volimo, ali moramo biti u mogućnosti da stvorimo i upražnjavamo taj ritual a da ne naškodimo životnoj sredini, zbog čega su nam potrebne nove opcije.
So let's return to the idea of protection, sanitation and beautification. We'll start with a dead body. The funeral industry will protect your dead body by offering to sell your family a casket made of hardwood or metal with a rubber sealant. At the cemetery, on the day of burial, that casket will be lowered into a large concrete or metal vault. We're wasting all of these resources -- concretes, metal, hardwoods -- hiding them in vast underground fortresses. When you choose burial at the cemetery, your dead body is not coming anywhere near the dirt that surrounds it. Food for worms you are not.
Vratimo se ideji o očuvanju, dezinfekciji i ulepšavanju. Počećemo od mrtvog tela. Pogrebna delatnost će zaštititi vaše mrtvo telo ponudivši da proda vašoj porodici kovčeg sačinjen od tvrdog drveta ili metala sa gumenim zaptivačem. Na groblju, na dan sahrane, taj kovčeg će biti spušten u veliku betonsku ili metalnu grobnicu. Traćimo sva ta sredstva - beton, metal, tvrdo drvo - time što ih sakrivamo u ogromne podzemne tvrđave. Kada odaberete sahranu na groblju, vaše mrtvo telo se ne približava zemlji koja ga okružuje. Hrana za crve ne postajete.
Next, the industry will sanitize your body through embalming: the chemical preservation of the dead. This procedure drains your blood and replaces it with a toxic, cancer-causing formaldehyde. They say they do this for the public health because the dead body can be dangerous, but the doctors in this room will tell you that that claim would only apply if the person had died of some wildly infectious disease, like Ebola. Even human decomposition, which, let's be honest, is a little stinky and unpleasant, is perfectly safe. The bacteria that causes disease is not the same bacteria that causes decomposition.
Zatim, dezinfikovaće vam telo balsamovanjem, hemijskim procesom za očuvanje mrtvih. Ova procedura vam ispušta krv i zamenjuje je otrovnim formaldehidom koji prouzrokuje rak. Kažu da to rade zbog javnog zdravlja jer mrtva tela mogu biti opasna, ali doktori u ovoj prostoriji će vam reći da bi ta tvrdnja važila samo ako je osoba umrla od neke užasno infektivne bolesti kao što je ebola. Čak i raspadanje ljudskog bića, koje, iskreno rečeno, jeste malo smrdljivo i neprijatno, savršeno je bezbedno. Bakterija koja izaziva bolest nije ista bakterija koja dovodi do raspadanja.
Finally, the industry will beautify the corpse. They'll tell you that the natural dead body of your mother or father is not good enough as it is. They'll put it in makeup. They'll put it in a suit. They'll inject dyes so the person looks a little more alive -- just resting. Embalming is a cheat code, providing the illusion that death and then decay are not the natural end for all organic life on this planet.
Najzad, ove usluge će ulepšati vaš leš. Reći će vam da prirodno mrtvo telo vaše majke ili oca nije dovoljno dobro takvo kakvo je. Staviće mu šminku. Obući će mu odelo. Ubrizgaće boje tako da osoba izgleda malo življe - kao da samo odmara. Balsamovanje je prevara koja pruža iluziju da smrt i potom propadanje nisu prirodan kraj svakog organskog života na ovoj planeti.
Now, if this system of beautification, sanitation, protection doesn't appeal to you, you are not alone. There is a whole wave of people -- funeral directors, designers, environmentalists -- trying to come up with a more eco-friendly way of death. For these people, death is not necessarily a pristine, makeup, powder-blue tuxedo kind of affair. There's no question that our current methods of death are not particularly sustainable, what with the waste of resources and our reliance on chemicals. Even cremation, which is usually considered the environmentally friendly option, uses, per cremation, the natural gas equivalent of a 500-mile car trip.
Ako vam se ovaj sistem ulepšavanja, dezinfekcije i očuvanja ne dopada, niste jedini. Postoji čitav talas ljudi - direktori pogrebnih firmi, dizajneri, borci za zaštitu životne sredine - koji pokušavaju da osmisle ekološki bolji način za umiranje. Za ove ljude, smrt nije nužno savršena, ušminkana stvar u svečanom odelu. Nema dileme da naše trenutne metode u smrti nisu naročito održive, sa svim tim traćenjem sredstava i našim oslanjanjem na hemikalije. Čak i kremacija, koja se obično smatra opcijom koja je naklonjena životnoj sredini, koristi, po jednoj kremaciji, prirodni gas količine potrebne za putovanje autom od 800 km.
So where do we go from here? Last summer, I was in the mountains of North Carolina, hauling buckets of wood chips in the summer sun. I was at Western Carolina University at their "Body Farm," more accurately called a "human decomposition facility." Bodies donated to science are brought here, and their decay is studied to benefit the future of forensics. On this particular day, there were 12 bodies laid out in various stages of decomposition. Some were skeletonized, one was wearing purple pajamas, one still had blonde facial hair visible. The forensic aspect is really fascinating, but not actually why I was there. I was there because a colleague of mine named Katrina Spade is attempting to create a system, not of cremating the dead, but composting the dead.
Pa, šta ćemo dalje? Proteklog leta sam bila u planinama Severne Karoline i vukla kofe piljevine na letnjem suncu. Bila sam na Univezitetu Zapadne Karoline na njihovoj „farmi tela“, koja se preciznije zove „ustanova za ljudsko raspadanje“. Tu se donose tela donirana nauci, a njihovo propadanje se izučava zarad budućnosti forenzike. Ovog konkretnog dana, 12 tela je bilo izloženo u različitim fazama raspadanja. Od nekih je ostao samo skelet, na jednom je bila ljubičasta pidžama, a na jednom su se još videle plave dlačice na licu. Forenzički aspekt je zaista fascinantan, ali nisam zapravo zbog toga bila tamo. Bila sam tamo jer moja koleginica po imenu Katrina Spejd pokušava da sačini sistem, ne za kremaciju mrtvih, već za kompostiranje mrtvih.
She calls the system "Recomposition," and we've been doing it with cattle and other livestock for years. She imagines a facility where the family could come and lay their dead loved one in a nutrient-rich mixture that would, in four-to-six weeks, reduce the body -- bones and all -- to soil. In those four-to-six weeks, your molecules become other molecules; you literally transform.
Svoj sistem naziva „Rekompozicija“, a godinama smo ga sprovodili sa govedima i ostalom stokom. Ona zamišlja ustanovu gde bi porodica mogla da dođe i položi svoje voljene koji su umrli u smešu bogatu hranljivim materijama koja bi za četiri do šest nedelja razložila telo - kosti i ostalo - u zemlju. Za tih četiri do šest nedelja, vaši molekuli postaju drugi molekuli; bukvalno se transformišete.
How would this fit in with the very recent desire a lot of people seem to have to be buried under a tree, or to become a tree when they die? In a traditional cremation, the ashes that are left over -- inorganic bone fragments -- form a thick, chalky layer that, unless distributed in the soil just right, can actually hurt or kill the tree. But if you're recomposed, if you actually become the soil, you can nourish the tree, and become the post-mortem contributor you've always wanted to be -- that you deserve to be.
Kako bi se ovo uklopilo sa željom koju izgleda da mnogi imaju od nedavno - da budu sahranjeni ispod drveta ili da postanu drvo kada umru? Pri tradicionalnoj kremaciji, pepeo koji preostane - neorganski delići kostiju - formira gusti sloj poput krede koji, ako se ne raspodeli baš kako treba u zemljište, zapravo može da naškodi drvetu ili da ga ubije. Ali ako ste „rekomponovani“, ako zapravo postanete zemljište, možete hraniti drvo i posmrtno dati doprinos kao što ste oduvek želeli, kao što i zaslužujete.
So that's one option for the future of cremation. But what about the future of cemeteries? There are a lot of people who think we shouldn't even have cemeteries anymore because we're running out of land. But what if we reframed it, and the corpse wasn't the land's enemy, but its potential savior? I'm talking about conservation burial, where large swaths of land are purchased by a land trust. The beauty of this is that once you plant a few dead bodies in that land, it can't be touched, it can't be developed on -- hence the term, "conservation burial." It's the equivalent of chaining yourself to a tree post-mortem -- "Hell no, I won't go! No, really -- I can't. I'm decomposing under here."
Dakle, to je jedna opcija za budućnost kremacije. A šta je sa budućnošću groblja? Postoji mnogo ljudi koji smatraju da uopšte ne treba da više imamo groblja jer nam ponestaje zemljišta. Međutim, šta ako bismo to preformulisali, ako leš ne bi bio neprijatelj zemlje, već njen potencijalni spasitelj? Govorim o konzervacijskom pogrebu, gde ogromne količine zemljišta kupi povereničko društvo. Lepota ovoga je u tome da, kada stavite nekoliko mrtvih tela u tu zemlju, ne može se dirati, ne može se graditi na njoj - otuda termin „konzervacijski pogreb“. To je isto kao da se vežete za drvo nakon smrti. „Nema šanse, neću da idem! Ne, stvarno, ne mogu. Razlažem se ovde.“
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Any money that the family gives to the cemetery would go back into protecting and managing the land. There are no headstones and no graves in the typical sense. The graves are scattered about the property under elegant mounds, marked only by a rock or a small metal disk, or sometimes only locatable by GPS. There's no embalming, no heavy, metal caskets. My funeral home sells a few caskets made out of things like woven willow and bamboo, but honestly, most of our families just choose a simple shroud. There are none of the big vaults that most cemeteries require just because it makes it easier for them to landscape. Families can come here; they can luxuriate in nature; they can even plant a tree or a shrub, though only native plants to the area are allowed. The dead then blend seamlessly in with the landscape.
Novac koji porodica daje groblju išao bi za zaštitu zemljišta i njegovo upravljanje. Nema spomenika i grobova u tipičnom smislu. Grobovi su rasuti po posedu pod elegantnim humkama, obeleženi samo kamenom ili malim metalnim diskom, ili se ponekad mogu locirati samo satelitskom navigacijom. Nema balsamovanja, teških i metalnih kovčega. Moja pogrebna firma prodaje nekoliko kovčega sačinjenih od materijala kao što su pletena vrba i bambus, ali iskreno, većina naših porodica odabere samo jednostavan pokrov. Nema velikih grobnica koje većina groblja zahteva samo zato što im to olakšava uređivanje prostora. Tu mogu doći porodice, mogu da uživaju u prirodi, mogu čak i da zasade drvo ili žbun, mada su dozvoljene samo domaće biljke sa područja. Mrtvi se tada lako spajaju sa predelom.
There's hope in conservation cemeteries. They offer dedicated green space in both urban and rural areas. They offer a chance to reintroduce native plants and animals to a region. They offer public trails, places for spiritual practice, places for classes and events -- places where nature and mourning meet. Most importantly, they offer us, once again, a chance to just decompose in a hole in the ground. The soil, let me tell you, has missed us.
U konzervacijskim grobljima je nada. Nude namenske zelene površine kako u gradskim, tako i seoskim sredinama. Nude priliku za ponovno uvođenje domaćih biljaka i životinja u regiji. Nude javne staze, mesta za duhovnu praksu, mesta za časove i događaje - mesta gde se sreću priroda i oplakivanje. Što je najvažnije, nude nam, još jednom, priliku da se prosto razložimo u rupi u zemlji. Zemljištu smo, da vam kažem, nedostajali.
I think for a lot of people, they're starting to get the sense that our current funeral industry isn't really working for them. For many of us, being sanitized and beautified just doesn't reflect us. It doesn't reflect what we stood for during our lives. Will changing the way we bury our dead solve climate change? No. But it will make bold moves in how we see ourselves as citizens of this planet. If we can die in a way that is more humble and self-aware, I believe that we stand a chance.
Mislim da mnogi ljudi počinju da stiču utisak da im sadašnje pogrebne usluge ne odgovaraju. U slučaju mnogih među nama, pročišćavanje i ulepšavanje jednostavno ne odgovara onome što jesmo. Ne poklapa se sa onim za šta smo se zalagali tokom života. Hoće li promena načina na koji sahranjujemo mrtve rešiti klimatske promene? Ne. Ali će načiniti hrabre poteze u načinu na koji vidimo sebe kao građane ove planete. Ako možemo umreti na način koji je skromniji i samosvesniji, verujem da za nas ima šanse.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)