Monthly Archives: September 2014

Halloween for Thinkers: Let’s Talk Back to Death — by Affirming Life!

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Halloween for Thinkers: Let’s Talk Back to Death — by Affirming Life!

with Ron Gross

 

Thursday, Oct. 30, 4:00 SHARP – 5:15 pm

Teachers College, Columbia University

525 West 120th Street  (bet. Broadway and Amsterdam Ave. – 116th St. stop on the #1 train)

Room 305 Russell Hall

 

RSVP to grossassoc@aol.com — space is limited

and CNY Meetup http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/210285442/

 

Please bring photo ID required for entry to building, and plan to arrive by 3:45 to be courteous to fellow participants.

 

Halloween is a holiday that makes fun of Death. At this Conversation, we’ll be inspired by death-defying mentors from Socrates to Woody Allen.  Let’s use wit, thoughtfulness, and conviviality to deal with the Grim Reaper!   (Costumes are Welcome but optional.)

 

Please join us to share your  convictions, feelings, and hopes.  We’ll be in good company: thousands of  Americans are attending Death Cafes, Death Dinners, and Death Salons (featured on the front page of The New York Times). A Showtime documentary series, Time of Death, focuses on “real people face to face with their own mortality.” An acclaimed recent book, The Death Class: A True Story About Life, reports that there’s a 3-year waiting list to enroll in this offering at Kean University in New Jersey; a similar on-line course, by Professor Shelly Kagan, is available from Yale University.

 

We are learning to talk about death more freely, frankly — and life-affirmingly! Come join the movement to demystify this taboo subject. It can be a significant step in learning how to live.

 

Among the topics we’ll discuss are:

 

  • Does your awareness of your mortality affect the way you are living your life? Should it? How?

 

  • What is one of your favorite novels, movies, TV shows, plays, musical works, or other art that deals with Death?

 

  • What happens after death? Do you feel that you are still somehow in contact with anyone you have lost?

  • Do you feel that you’ve thought enough about mortality, to sort out your ideas and feelings in ways that are satisfying to you?

 

  • Do you have any strong convictions about what you would like to happen at the end of your life? Should we have The Pill?

 

CNY Members please note:  This conversation will be followed at 5:45 by the monthly meeting of the CNY Steering Committee, which you are warmly welcome to join!

 

“Double-Header”! Conversation + CNY Meeting – Sep 18

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“Double-Header”! Conversation + CNY Meeting, 9/18, 4:00 – 7:00, Columbia University

Conversation on Your Values, with Ron Gross,

using video dramatizations, 4:00 – 5:15,

plus

CNY Meeting to plan pre-Halloween city-wide conversations on

“Would It Kill You to Spend An Hour Talking About Death?”

5:15-7:00.

Thurs., September 18th

Teachers College, Columbia University

Gottesman Libraries

525 W. 120th, Room 104b

COME FOR EITHER OR BOTH.

RSVP to grossassoc@aol.com

and Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/204369892/

The Conversation – 4:00 – 5:15

Lights! Camera!! Values!!?:

How Is Your Character Shaped by the TV, Movies, and Other Media You See?

Socratic Conversation with Ron Gross

Have your values been effected by portrayals of good and bad behavior which you’ve experienced via TV

dramas, movies, and theater?

At this Conversation we’ll view a stunning array of one-minute real-life incidents designed to inspire us to

practice major virtues like Honesty, Grit, Civility, and Commitment.

Do you feel that your ideals are strengthened when you see such enactments in the media?

Please come to share your experiences with the ways in which inspiring stories, images, and words have

shaped your character.

Conversations New York Meeting – 5:30 – 7:00

We will celebrate the success of our CONVERSATION DAY on 8/30 in Bryant Park, welcome your ideas and suggestions, and organize for our next initiative, below.

CONVERSATION VS. DEATH

October, 2014

Would It Kill You to Spend an Hour Talking About Death? is the rallying cry for a city-wide series of

conversations to occur this October, during the period leading up to Halloween, promoted by Conversations

New York (www.conversationsnewyork.com).

These free, open-to-all Conversations will be held in public spaces and places throughout the five boroughs,

including parks, churches, campuses, business building ground-floor atriums such as CityCorp at 53rd

and Lexington Avenue, and upstairs eating rooms of fast food restaurants such as those opposite Penn Station

on 6th Avenue and 33rd Street.  How-To at the website.  Anyone can self-organize their own conversation on this topic by using the easy

Organizations and institutions which are hosting conversations on the subject of Death during that period

include the New York Society for Ethical Culture, The Open Center, Trinity Church, and the Death Café of NY

which has been featured on the front page of The New York Times.

A culminating conversation will be held at Columbia University on the day before the holiday, Thursday, Oct. 30th, at 4:00 pm, hosted by Ronald Gross, founder/director of CNY.

“These conversations are celebrations of life,” says Gross, author of Socrates’ Way and other books. “They are

inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s dictum: ‘Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.’”

The sponsor of Conversation vs. Death is Conversations New York (www.conversationsnewyork.com), a non-

profit which earlier this year held a symposium on The Power of Conversation at Columbia University, and

organized a Conversation Day celebration in Bryant Park on August 30th

CONTACT:

Ronald Gross, grossassoc@aol.com; http://www.conversationsnewyork.com.

“Double-Header”! Conversation + CNY Meeting – Sep 18

Posted on by

“Double-Header”! Conversation + CNY Meeting, 9/18, 4:00 – 7:00, Columbia University

Conversation on Your Values, with Ron Gross,

using video dramatizations, 4:00 – 5:15,

plus

CNY Meeting to plan pre-Halloween city-wide conversations on

“Would It Kill You to Spend An Hour Talking About Death?”

5:15-7:00.

Thurs., September 18th

Teachers College, Columbia University

Gottesman Libraries

525 W. 120th, Room 104b

COME FOR EITHER OR BOTH.

RSVP to grossassoc@aol.com

and Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/204369892/

 

The Conversation – 4:00 – 5:15

Lights! Camera!! Values!!?:

How Is Your Character Shaped by the TV, Movies, and Other Media You See?

Socratic Conversation with Ron Gross

Have your values been effected by portrayals of good and bad behavior which you’ve experienced via TV

dramas, movies, and theater?

At this Conversation we’ll view a stunning array of one-minute real-life incidents designed to inspire us to

practice major virtues like Honesty, Grit, Civility, and Commitment.

Do you feel that your ideals are strengthened when you see such enactments in the media?

Please come to share your experiences with the ways in which inspiring stories, images, and words have

shaped your character.

 

Conversations New York Meeting – 5:30 – 7:00

We will celebrate the success of our CONVERSATION DAY on 8/30 in Bryant Park, welcome your ideas and suggestions, and organize for our next initiative, below.

CONVERSATION VS. DEATH

October, 2014

Would It Kill You to Spend an Hour Talking About Death? is the rallying cry for a city-wide series of

conversations to occur this October, during the period leading up to Halloween, promoted by Conversations

New York (www.conversationsnewyork.com).

These free, open-to-all Conversations will be held in public spaces and places throughout the five boroughs,

including parks, churches, campuses, business building ground-floor atriums such as CityCorp at 53rd

and Lexington Avenue, and upstairs eating rooms of fast food restaurants such as those opposite Penn Station

on 6th Avenue and 33rd Street.  How-To at the website.  Anyone can self-organize their own conversation on this topic by using the easy

Organizations and institutions which are hosting conversations on the subject of Death during that period

include the New York Society for Ethical Culture, The Open Center, Trinity Church, and the Death Café of NY

which has been featured on the front page of The New York Times.

A culminating conversation will be held at Columbia University on the day before the holiday, Thursday, Oct. 30th, at 4:00 pm, hosted by Ronald Gross, founder/director of CNY.

“These conversations are celebrations of life,” says Gross, author of Socrates’ Way and other books. “They are

inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s dictum: ‘Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.’”

The sponsor of Conversation vs. Death is Conversations New York (www.conversationsnewyork.com), a non-

profit which earlier this year held a symposium on The Power of Conversation at Columbia University, and

organized a Conversation Day celebration in Bryant Park on August 30th

CONTACT:

Ronald Gross, grossassoc@aol.com; http://www.conversationsnewyork.com.