Existential Issues

Dr. Sheldon Solomon on the Empathetic Nature of Human Beings: Exclusive Interview

The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. Sheldon Solomon talks about the empathic nature of human beings. LF: It’s interesting because I’m reading a book by Sara Hardy, she’s a cultural anthropologist and I love this. And we really are social creatures. And we really… Read more »

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Dr. Sheldon Solomon on Terror Management Theory: Exclusive Interview

The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. TMT Findings Imply A Better Way To Live Sheldon Solomon talks about Terror Management Theory and the implications of a better way to live. SS: It is important for people to feel that they are of genuine value… Read more »

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Dr. Sheldon Solomon On Death Awareness and Culture Formation: Exclusive Interview

Dr. Sheldon Solomon on Death Awareness and Culture Formation [SlideDeck2 id=13293] Sheldon Solomon talks about Ernest Becker’s description of how death awareness fashions the formation of culture. SS: These are ideas we kind of, I think, borrowed or maybe extrapolated a little from what we gleaned from Ernest Becker. As you know, his argument is… Read more »

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Teaching in Prisons: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Sheldon Solomon

The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. Sheldon Solomon talks about his experience teaching in prisons. SS:I spent a decade in the prisons – the maximum security and medium security prison – in New York working with inmates to teach them college courses. And it… Read more »

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Dr. Sheldon Solomon on Terror Management Theory: Exclusive Interview

The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. Sheldon Solomon talks about how Terror Management Theory began. ….we were egghead researchers trying to understand why people couldn’t get along with other people who didn’t share their beliefs about reality. And then we stumbled onto Ernest Becker’s… Read more »

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Creating Meaning by Facing Our Mortality

“The irony of man’s condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.” ― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death As humans, our awareness of death is inherent. When confronted… Read more »

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It’s Not Easy to Be Objective About Suicide

I have a new job on Monday afternoons and evenings. I am a volunteer administrator for the Facebook page: Putting a Face on Suicide (PAFOS) – as part of an international group of fifteen from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany who work on the page eight or more hours a week…. Read more »

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Comforting Those Who Grieve

So many people get stuck when it comes to comforting someone who is grieving. They don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to do. So they send flowers, they bring over a casserole for the already filled-to-the-brim freezer, they send a sweet card, or they sometimes just avoid the issue entirely, thinking maybe… Read more »

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Living Free From Regret

A friend of mine sent me a list of The Top 5 Regrets People Say on their Deathbed as compiled by Bronnie Ware, a woman who works closely with the dying, It wasn’t relevant that the list was not necessarily the result of stringent empirical research or that it could even be fictitious; what seemed relevant to… Read more »

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How Writing Helped Me Survive My Son’s Suicide

The day my son Paul died I couldn’t even put my underpants on right side out, and in the days that followed I had to retrain myself to do what I needed to do just to appear alive. I had to walk myself through the steps – get up, go to the bathroom, brush teeth,… Read more »

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