Here’s a riddle for you. “Those who make it, don’t need it. Those who buy it, don’t use it. Those who use it, don’t know it. What is it?” I’ll give you some time to think about it before I tell you the answer.

There is an industrial racket that I really hold in great disdain, and that is the death and funeral business. A recent TV spot reported that death is a billion dollar industry. It’s amazing that something so basic and natural as death can be subject to so much dread, exploitation and greed. I realize that undertakers have to make a living, too, but I wish that they would employ less-extortive means and not take such advantage of people’s grief and vulnerability. Everything connected with morticians and funerals are grossly-overpriced. How can they charge thousands of dollars for some fancy, oblong box which is used for a very short while—a few days at the most—and which is then destined to go into the ground for all eternity. And what’s worse, why do people then pay such prices for such a thing? Oh, the answer to that riddle? Why, it’s a coffin or casket, of course!

Even before the wake and funeral, there is a fee for the preparation of the corpse. It has to be embalmed. Why? What is the purpose of that? Then your “final resting place” is more moolah, depending on whether you get a simple dirt plot, or a mausoleum. If you opt for the ground route, then you’ll need an identifying headstone for your loved ones when they visit the grave. All this money spent for what? To put on a show for a dead person’s surviving relatives and friends. It’s all for appearances’ sake, really. The corpse has to look good, so buy them a new suit or dress, if necessary. You can’t have Mother looking tacky at her own funeral. I mean, what will the neighbors say? Then you have to have an attractive-looking coffin for the attendees to admire. Money’s no object. If we can spend more money on this casket than the family spent on Cousin Euphrosyne’s, then so much the better. I am all for funerals and memorial services to acknowledge someone’s passing and celebrate their life–I would hope that I am honored in such a way when I die–but I certainly don’t have to be there physically.

Corpse disposal is another bone of contention with me (pardon the pun). Think of all the hundreds of thousands of acres of land all over the world that have been used as cemeteries and graveyards. So this land is not being used for anything else, but it could be. The only thing that these planted bodies are doing is taking up a lot of space. But if you are going to bury a dead body, which I think is unnecessary in itself, why not bury just the naked body? Why put it in any kind of container? Why do they try to preserve it, for what reason? It’s just an old dead thing, subject to eventual decay. People seem to be brainwashed in accepting certain conventions of life without acknowledging the practical and logical ramifications of the situation.

I think that we should make cremation the primary mode of corpse disposal. Make undertakers obsolete and do away with the profession altogether. Cremation is more practical anyway. It’s the best form of preservation. You reduce the body to a compact bunch of ashes (sort of like microfilm) and you get to keep them for as long as you want—requires no refrigeration. You don’t need an expensive tombstone either. Just put an identifying label on the urn or other container, if you have more than one. Of course, cremation is controlled by the capitalists, too. If cremation does becomes “the thing,” then somebody has to make some money from people’s deaths. They’ve made it against the law to conduct our own private cremations, which doesn’t seem fair. Anyone can start a fire. If someone dies in their own home, for instance, why can’t the family just dispose of the corpse themselves, instead of hiring some agency, which charges a lot of money, to do it for them? “Uh, Billy Ray, go over yonder to the fireplace and poke up your grandma. It’s gettin’ a might chilly in here.”

I have designated in my will that after my death I offer any of my bodily parts that are of any use to anyone for transplant or replacement purposes or to medical science for the purpose of instruction or experimentation, after which the useless remains shall be burnt up. I also carry an organ donor card in my wallet. Viable human organs have become a much-coveted commodity nowadays. They are so needed that one often has to tap into the black market industry to obtain them. Why not make postmortem organ donation a requirement or law even? Instead of wasting valuable organs and body parts by putting them in the ground to rot, many other lives could be saved and prolonged. They can still dispose of the rest of the corpse after they’ve made use of the usable parts.

This current campaign for conservation and recycling should apply to ourselves as well as other discarded items. I suggested in another post that we should find a way to process human remains into palatable food. With people dying all the time, we would have an ongoing, unlimited supply of food and organs. We could easily end world hunger forever if everyone, including governments, would use practical thinking and an open mind to solve a lot of problems, rather than holding onto outdated and impractical hangups and taboos about death, burial and disposal.