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We are run by a five volt battery. When it finally pops, pops out news is no longer the energy is still there and it goes into something. It goes somewhere. Energy is infinite. Where do you hope it goes your particular
Well, there's the other nobody. It's the old story, isn't it, nobody's come back and told us, hello, everyone. Well, nothing is more certain than death and taxes and dying is a reality we all face. Yet it really is a conversation we all try to avoid. What happens when we die? How would we like to die, and how can talking about it give us a more meaningful life? We have Rob and Veena With us to discuss this important topic. Welcome again to rob and Veena. It's lovely to have you here and to talk. This morning, we're going to tackle a more difficult subject, I guess, because we all know we're going to die, some of us sooner than others, and I thought I might just start with you, Rob, what's your thoughts on dying?
Thoughts on dying? Right? It's a big question for First of all, let me establish I am not at all religious. So I do not believe in heaven. I do not believe in hell. I think it was Nietzsche, or maybe I think it was who said, when he was asked, what happens to you when you die, he said, exactly the same. That's happened to the billions of people who have died before me, and that's about where I stand on it, yeah, I'm not special. I'm not different. There is no reason for me to believe that anything different will happen to me that has happened to everybody else who has died. And there are billions of people who have died before us, yeah, okay. Some people say that. You know, we are run by a five volt battery, virtually. And I've heard stories of people who are death beds, who have said, Oh, it wasn't like lightning. It was going the other way. There was a flame as little spark came out of the body. Yeah, okay. And I believed that energy is infinite, and a lot of people believe that you cannot kill energy. You can only change its form, so light will become heat, or heat will become something else, and so on. We are run by a five volt battery. When it finally pops, pops out and is no longer, yeah, the energy is still there, and it goes into something. It goes somewhere. Energy is infinite. Where do you hope it goes your particular Well, there's the other. Nobody's the old story, isn't it? Nobody's come back and told us. So I don't know the answer, yeah, if you believe in reincarnation, that is human energy, and it can only exist in certain forms, and it will go into another, perhaps unborn child. It might go into a dog. It might go into a flower, a plant. I don't know, I don't know where it goes, so it doesn't frighten you, then it doesn't frighten me.
No, no, interesting at all. No, I am a, I am a five volt battery. I will, it will go one day, and whatever happens to that dissipated energy is not my problem. It's not my issue with that. Are you frightened about the process of dying more than dying itself?
Yeah, I've been, I've written down my my, you know, last wishes, yeah? I mean, one would always like to die peacefully in bed, yeah? You know, yeah, yeah, that's, that's the wish for all of us, isn't it? Yeah.
I mean, I'd rather that than a car crash or anything, or something really sort of bloody and horrible that left you mangled for many, many months and you die a horrible death. I don't, nobody really wants that. But again, it is what it is, isn't it?
And what about you, Veena? Because you're 90 and looking like you're a sprightly 70 year old, I must say I was afraid of dying, and you're not afraid, because you have a very strong faith, don't you? Yes, yeah. So although sometimes it's not so strong as I would like to be, yeah, to have but I'm not afraid at all. I don't even think about it, because I think that what we do here, and if you do well and good and try always to do the things that are supposed to do that, values and things like that that my parents gave it to me. I'm not a. Paid off anything of time because I just want a quick, very quick date, and nothing made people always say he died suddenly.
Everybody dies suddenly, don't you suffer some, some people wither. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. That's what that was, yeah, just Yeah, yeah, so do I Yeah. I just like a candle you blow and it's gone.
I love that thought. That's a great yeah. That's a great thought. And in terms of because the opposite, of course, of dying, you can live for what, frankly, waiting to die, or you can live, yeah, and thrive while you live. How, how do you do that? How do you keep going and have the energy to I might not have energy, that's why I want to go suddenly, but you got a lot of energy now. I doubt that.
You know, I can't, I can't think of being innovative, being sitting in a chair, doing nothing, and that needs you walk. Do you walk a lot? Sorry. Do you walk a lot? No, but I do a lot of exercise.
Wow, still, yeah, which makes it strong.
Yes, that's what I need that. I feel that I need I can't. I can't keep still for a long time. When you do die, what do you want to be remembered for? What would you like on your headstone that recognized you?
That's one thing I haven't written yet. Do you get the choice everybody? Oh yeah, yeah. Well, my favorite is Spike Milligan, the goon. Yeah. He became knighted not long before he died, and he was asked to design his own family crest and whatever. And the little flag at the bottom had a motto on it. Then that was going to be his family motto. And he wrote go on. He spells goon. Oh, well done. Excellent.
Yeah, I don't know what I'd no. Not sure about my headstone. Be nice.
It'd be nice to have what would you like to be remembered for?
For what I am, no more, yes, you don't know what you want on your headstone at all. It's not something. No, I think I've thought about this, funnily enough, given the crew, oh, to me, yeah, it is for them, but it when you you know when you pass or you die. I'd like to be thought of as generous. I think that's the the words, well, you only have one word on my headstone. That's what I thought. He was generous. She was generous. Yeah. Well, they know what I am so yeah, I don't think it's difficult yeah for them, yeah. So you haven't told them, no, no, no, although you can't tell I don't think you can't impose what you want to put in your grave fees. I you know it will be what they feel. Yeah, yeah. Not totally, right now, anyway, will if you if you write it before you go. So if you put sticky notes on all your your belongings around, who can have what? I've started doing that already.
I gave it everything. It's in my will. I've written a will, yeah, when I came here, surely things that they really have in my place, beautiful for 70 years old. Really nice things from a wedding I gave their all.
So there's nothing that you are leaving that you haven't already given to people, but I had little things that I just brought here. Yeah, that's all generous too. Yeah?
My, um, my children laugh because I've already started putting little sticky notes saying that's for you, and that's
Yeah, but that's the best thing to do, yeah, my son, I only have one and grandchildren, so I just left everything to them. No.
So how do you live your life, not worrying about death? How do you do that?
You just enjoy it.
Why things? You know? I mean, I try and find new things to do or think about, not necessarily every day, but, you know, every week or so. And I'll, I'll go and research you on the computer, just out of but you really work in computers, aren't you? Yeah, I'm, I know what I need to know, that's all, but I will go and I wonder what happened to so and so. And you go and read into it, oh, I love that. Don't you love people that you knew from your childhood?
I might end up writing something or, you know, writing a poem or whatever. And then that's that week done. Of course, you've got all the activities here to keep you, keep you going physically and hopefully mentally and yeah, I mean, there are a few people, I must admit, obviously, no names, no package, or there are a few people in care that I've met who have given up, and they've given up far too early. Okay, in my book, do you think families do that too? Because there's a real, there's a bit of a stigma about when you come to an residential aged care or a retirement village that you're, frankly, you're waiting to die, and it's not like that at all.
No, you shouldn't families kind of, do you think I do many families? Yeah, they really put the parents in the house so die.
But did you feel like, no, no, jeez, people keep them at home. Yeah, we don't do that. My father, my mother, all that was in town, hotels. So you think that is that quite an Australian thing to do? No, I don't think, because everybody that I see, that I know, have the parents, you know, you know, like me, yeah? So you feel like it's an Australian thing to put people in, and it's only Australia things is around the world, yeah, I don't know.
Watching is we have Latin so less so in Asia, funny enough. And we get Asian staff here, and they my brother lived in Thailand, in Bangkok for 40 odd years, and in the early time that he was there, I don't think there were any aged care facilities. No, probably one in Bangkok, in Thailand in general. No, because the children look after their family. Have a lot of do you take your parents into your house, or you build them a house, or, you know, whatever, and you care for them. You care for your parents. It's a big cultural change. Yeah, I mean, girls here from Bhutan, they can't understand that they work here, and they do a damn good job more often than not, but they can't understand the culture of putting old people into a hotel, or whatever they call it, hotel, yeah, into, into a strange facility. You know, that's just not part of their capture.
Yeah? You take your parents. Don't know how old they are, how infirm they are, you take them in, you look after them. But this should be normal, yeah? Because, I mean, they give us everything they have. Yeah, they do everything. Do you want? How to walk, teach you how to use your hands to eat. They'll do everything, everything for your studies. And then they go old and you get rid of them. It's something unthinkable, don't you think, Oh yeah, you I am.
I'm going to finish it on that note once again. We finished on a sad note, not a not a happy note, but never mind, we've done that again, and we leave that Thank you. Thank you so much to both of you.
Thank you. Thank you.
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