It was organised by James Kay, part of the expat Taipei community. James says "It went rather well and the group didn’t need or want much guidance.
"Here is my attempt at describing who I am and why I’m doing this:
"I’m an American living in Taipei, Taiwan and intending to stay here to the end; or my end, anyway. Most of my career involved, in one way or another, making computers work. I’m 72 now and still wondering how middle-age, when it comes, will make me feel different. (I do have this nagging sense that middle-age came and went and I simply missed it. Seventy-two seems like it should be OLD, but don’t have much evidence of that.)
"A recurrent theme in my inner life has always been justifying—to myself—my own existence. And it took me a very long time and lots of experimentation to discover what sorts of things I could do to accomplish that. The best I’ve found involves other people and my relationships with them. I crossed paths with a very worthy young woman and invested a great deal in helping her on the road of life. I changed her life and she changed mine.
"I feel I’ve made my small corner of the world a little bit more loving and beautiful. Having launched her on her own path in life, leaves me very much at peace. So here in Taiwan, I organize and host inter-cultural events seeking to make other people’s lives—as well as my own—a little more loving and beautiful. I think it’s working.
"When I read about Death Cafés in the New York Times, I immediately knew I wanted to bring that to Taipei. 'What is consciousness anyway? It’s a thin veneer over our selves which we use primarily to justify what we have already decided we want to do.' Sigmund Freud
"'The mind is divided like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant.' The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
These two quotes accurately match my own life experience so anything I try to say, about why I’m sponsoring Death Cafés in Taipei, would be fiction at best. My unconscious/elephant wants to; so my job is to arrange things. If nothing else, it keeps the peace inside my head as well as between me and the rest of reality."
"Here is my attempt at describing who I am and why I’m doing this:
"I’m an American living in Taipei, Taiwan and intending to stay here to the end; or my end, anyway. Most of my career involved, in one way or another, making computers work. I’m 72 now and still wondering how middle-age, when it comes, will make me feel different. (I do have this nagging sense that middle-age came and went and I simply missed it. Seventy-two seems like it should be OLD, but don’t have much evidence of that.)
"A recurrent theme in my inner life has always been justifying—to myself—my own existence. And it took me a very long time and lots of experimentation to discover what sorts of things I could do to accomplish that. The best I’ve found involves other people and my relationships with them. I crossed paths with a very worthy young woman and invested a great deal in helping her on the road of life. I changed her life and she changed mine.
"I feel I’ve made my small corner of the world a little bit more loving and beautiful. Having launched her on her own path in life, leaves me very much at peace. So here in Taiwan, I organize and host inter-cultural events seeking to make other people’s lives—as well as my own—a little more loving and beautiful. I think it’s working.
"When I read about Death Cafés in the New York Times, I immediately knew I wanted to bring that to Taipei. 'What is consciousness anyway? It’s a thin veneer over our selves which we use primarily to justify what we have already decided we want to do.' Sigmund Freud
"'The mind is divided like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant.' The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
These two quotes accurately match my own life experience so anything I try to say, about why I’m sponsoring Death Cafés in Taipei, would be fiction at best. My unconscious/elephant wants to; so my job is to arrange things. If nothing else, it keeps the peace inside my head as well as between me and the rest of reality."
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