You and everyone you love will die. There's no way around it. Yet we rarely talk or think about the topic until we have to. For the first time in human history, we are "living longer and dying slower." That's good news, but it also creates a cultural disassociation with the reality of death.

But there's a growing movement - online and IRL - around death literacy. It advocates for ongoing conversation and education about this universal part of life. Just like exercise, finances, or playing piano, how can we be successful at something if we don't learn, practice, and grow?

That's the mission of Bevival, an online community and resource devoted to changing the cultural conversation around death. It's the brainchild of Caren Martineau, an entrepreneur who suddenly realized she has more time behind her than ahead.

Jade Adgate is a death midwife, who supports people with terminal diagnoses and the families left behind. She also empowers a large community on social media by sharing her work and insights to help grievers she can't reach in person.

Together, they produce the Exit Interviews podcast, a regular conversation with leading authors and philosophers about how we can make meaning from "the final frontier."

This week, Caren and Jade sit down with (a reluctant) Matt to discuss their calling around death literacy, their mission to engage the Internet on difficult topics, how death has become commercialized in the 20th and 21st centuries, and why that dehumanizes mortality.

Connect with Caren at http://bevival.com

Follow Jade on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.farewell.library

Subscribe to the Exit Interviews podcast: https://www.bevival.com/books-podcast-death-literacy

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