Author’s column in philosophical anthropology. An essayistic reflection.
I noticed that when we talk about death, we increasingly talk about a process, not a person.
A few months ago I took part in planning a friend’s funeral. A man with his own philosophy, an odd taste in music, a habit of writing his thoughts down on old napkins because he didn’t trust digital notes. A man with his own architecture of life.
And what did I get? A standard package of services.
A casket from a catalog (three tiers: cheap, medium, expensive). A bouquet considered appropriate by general convention. A rite that, it seemed to me in that moment, spoke more about eternity in the abstract than about this particular person’s particular fate. And then — a table at a restaurant, where the silence kept getting interrupted by ordinary conversation, creating a strange, almost mundane contrast with what had just been lived through.
This is a conveyor belt. And I don’t mean malicious intent — I mean the very logic of a system oriented toward universality, in which individuality becomes an optional extra.
I. What Happened to Farewell?
There was a time when a farewell was meant to tell the story of a person. Objects, rites, words — all of it could be particular. Every family brought something of its own, shading the general order with a personal gesture. The uniqueness of a life was visible in the moment of its ending.
Today, farewell is often reduced to the efficient management of grief’s logistics. We’re offered a choice from a limited set of options, as if from a standard menu. A system built to help on the hardest days is, by its nature, drawn toward uniformity, and the question «who was this person?» often falls outside its brackets.
This might sound like an abstract observation, but I see in it an important cultural shift. We risk replacing a deeply personal, sacred moment with a set of standardized solutions. And once something becomes just a service, it easily loses its essence.
II. Identity as a Conscious Choice
But there is a countermovement too — people increasingly want to bring personal traits back into farewell.
I’ve talked with people looking for an urn in a non-standard color. With families who asked to add a line from the deceased’s favorite poem to the traditional wording. This isn’t rebellion for its own sake. It’s an attempt to restore a connection, to say: «This life was exactly this way, and that matters.»
When I first saw a consciously designed, minimalist object made for this rite, I understood that form, color, material aren’t just physical properties. They’re a language — a language in which one can speak of individuality even when words are no longer possible.
III. Why This Matters Right Now
We live in an age where algorithms predict our desires and social environments produce reproducible images of a life. The individual can sometimes feel like a rare resource.
And in this context, the final farewell is, paradoxically, one of the last spaces where a person can be revealed to the world not as a set of data, but as a whole, unique story.
I see in this not a bleak fatalism, but a possibility. The possibility of a conscious choice: how will those who see you off remember your life? Will it be by following a convenient template, or by an attempt to tell your story through form and symbol?
IV. Dignity in the Details
I don’t believe the system as it stands will change radically overnight. Its scale and its inertia are considerable.
But I do believe every person has the ability to make a conscious choice inside that system — to demand, to find, to create the kind of details that turn a standard script into a genuine, meaningful farewell.
Because in the end, a farewell isn’t a service rendered. It’s the last act of respect for a life lived. And that act should be worthy of it.
And what did I get? A standard package of services.
A casket from a catalog (three tiers: cheap, medium, expensive). A bouquet considered appropriate by general convention. A rite that, it seemed to me in that moment, spoke more about eternity in the abstract than about this particular person’s particular fate. And then — a table at a restaurant, where the silence kept getting interrupted by ordinary conversation, creating a strange, almost mundane contrast with what had just been lived through.
This is a conveyor belt. And I don’t mean malicious intent — I mean the very logic of a system oriented toward universality, in which individuality becomes an optional extra.
I. What Happened to Farewell?
There was a time when a farewell was meant to tell the story of a person. Objects, rites, words — all of it could be particular. Every family brought something of its own, shading the general order with a personal gesture. The uniqueness of a life was visible in the moment of its ending.
Today, farewell is often reduced to the efficient management of grief’s logistics. We’re offered a choice from a limited set of options, as if from a standard menu. A system built to help on the hardest days is, by its nature, drawn toward uniformity, and the question «who was this person?» often falls outside its brackets.
This might sound like an abstract observation, but I see in it an important cultural shift. We risk replacing a deeply personal, sacred moment with a set of standardized solutions. And once something becomes just a service, it easily loses its essence.
II. Identity as a Conscious Choice
But there is a countermovement too — people increasingly want to bring personal traits back into farewell.
I’ve talked with people looking for an urn in a non-standard color. With families who asked to add a line from the deceased’s favorite poem to the traditional wording. This isn’t rebellion for its own sake. It’s an attempt to restore a connection, to say: «This life was exactly this way, and that matters.»
When I first saw a consciously designed, minimalist object made for this rite, I understood that form, color, material aren’t just physical properties. They’re a language — a language in which one can speak of individuality even when words are no longer possible.
III. Why This Matters Right Now
We live in an age where algorithms predict our desires and social environments produce reproducible images of a life. The individual can sometimes feel like a rare resource.
And in this context, the final farewell is, paradoxically, one of the last spaces where a person can be revealed to the world not as a set of data, but as a whole, unique story.
I see in this not a bleak fatalism, but a possibility. The possibility of a conscious choice: how will those who see you off remember your life? Will it be by following a convenient template, or by an attempt to tell your story through form and symbol?
IV. Dignity in the Details
I don’t believe the system as it stands will change radically overnight. Its scale and its inertia are considerable.
But I do believe every person has the ability to make a conscious choice inside that system — to demand, to find, to create the kind of details that turn a standard script into a genuine, meaningful farewell.
Because in the end, a farewell isn’t a service rendered. It’s the last act of respect for a life lived. And that act should be worthy of it.
About the column: Architecture of Memory is an intellectual topography of ritual culture as a universal language. Its subject is how societies encode their relationship with eternity. Its method is comparative research through the lens of design, anthropology, and philosophy. We don’t just describe rites — we read the codes that cultures leave in stone, ritual, and space, drawing a map of their philosophies of life and death. Not content. Not advertising. Dialogue.
P.S. The laboratory is open. The research continues. Every month, new chapters appear on the map of the «Topography of Eternity.»
— Iskandar Kadyrov
P.S. The laboratory is open. The research continues. Every month, new chapters appear on the map of the «Topography of Eternity.»
— Iskandar Kadyrov