Religion on the Mind with Dan Koch
Episode #371: "Making Peace with Mortality, Or ‘Dying, Fast and Slow’"
Airdate: January 5, 2026
Guest: Kristin Tiedman
Host: Dr. Dan Koch

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into mortality, grief, and the existential challenges that surface when facing serious illness or loss. Host Dan Koch, a licensed therapist, and returning guest Kristin Tiedman explore what it means to confront death—quickly and slowly—via personal experience, recent cultural moments, existential therapy, psychology, and spirituality. The conversation is candid, occasionally darkly humorous, and filled with philosophical musings, personal stories, and literary/artistic references.

Main Topics & Discussion Points

1. Personal Encounters with Mortality

• Kristin's Diagnosis ([02:22–07:03])

  • Kristin shares her recent diagnosis: initially multiple sclerosis (MS), later revised to clinically isolated syndrome (CIS). She explains the confusion, emotional impact, and her experience holding her newborn in the ER.
  • Quote:
    “I've never felt mortality...I have a timeline. I am finite. I guess my finitude hit me in a new way.” – Kristin ([06:13])
  • She describes her grandmother’s recent death as a contrasting experience: a long, slow decline, raising the question of “dying fast and slow.”
  • Dan reflects on narrative versus real modes of dying and how modern medicine shapes these patterns.

• Tatiana Schlossberg’s Story ([09:15–11:10])

  • Kristin discusses being deeply moved by Schlossberg’s New Yorker piece on receiving a terminal leukemia diagnosis right after childbirth.
  • Quote:
    “Death is on my mind. Finitude’s on my mind. And also recognizing how much we don’t want it to be on our minds, how much we push it off of our minds.” – Kristin ([10:42])

2. Medical and Existential Clarity

• Explaining MS/CIS ([11:11–17:57])

  • Kristin gives a clear, layperson’s explanation of MS and its impact, describing her own symptoms (notably visual disturbances) and the uncertainty about prognosis.
  • Memorable Moment:
    “My eye...it looks like deep fried memes. I don't know if everyone remembers those…very overexposed…That’s actually very common…Symptom or onset attack or flare up of MS.” – Kristin ([13:36])
  • Discussion on advances in treatment, shifting MS from a likely sentence of disability/death to a more manageable chronic illness.

• Existential Therapy and Limitation ([18:27–23:43])

  • Dan draws connections to existential therapy, suggesting serious illness can clarify our limits and therefore, paradoxically, increase meaning.
  • Quote:
    “As you accept it and then build your life consciously from within those limits. Because again, that's what we all have to do if we’re going to be honest. And most of us don’t ever get that honest.” – Dan ([20:28])
  • Kristin ponders whether such diagnosis might be a “gift”—an insight or shift in perspective forced by circumstance.
  • Quote:
    “It's a gift I would have never asked for, but I think I have to view it that way, actually.” – Kristin ([23:12])

3. Religion, Art, and Suffering

• Artistic Response to Suffering ([26:06–30:24])

  • Dan hypothesizes that intense suffering produces better art and wonders if the comfort of religious answers can diminish artistic depth.
  • Quote:
    “Maybe [religion] obviates a certain kind of pain...that contributes to art being good.” – Dan ([26:06])
  • Kristin agrees: religious art often swings between beauty and placation, sometimes at the expense of honesty. C.S. Lewis discussed as an exception.

• Religious Literature and Apologetics ([28:12–32:52])

  • They critique Christian knockoff art vs. secular (or suffering-informed) works. Dan praises “The Great Divorce” for psychological richness.
  • Connections drawn between “Love Island” reality TV and C.S. Lewis’ depiction of hell: self-chosen misery and unwillingness to change as a barrier.

4. Grief & Death Practices in Modern Culture

• Modern Bereavement and Ritual ([39:03–45:43])

  • Kristin describes her grandmother’s funeral—how rapid, sanitized modern rituals can undermine collective grieving.
  • The importance of physically interacting with the dead ("sitting Shiva," processions, funeral rites) and how those lessen or contextualize grief.
  • Memorable Moment:
    “It was almost jarring...She was the one dying slow. But then all of a sudden, it was fast.” – Kristin ([41:19])
  • Dan points to modern avoidance of death—hiding it away, minimizing reminders, shortening rituals.
    Quote:
    “So much of what we do seems ultimately designed for us...so that we can get on with our fucking lives and stop thinking about this.” – Dan ([45:05])

• Existential Takeaways

  • “Memento mori” as a motif: keeping awareness of mortality as motivation for meaning.
  • Emmy van Deurzen’s words:
    “We…take the intensity out of life by pretending it will last forever.” – Dan, quoting van Deurzen ([48:34])

5. Not Knowing and the Fear of Non-Existence

• Wrestling with Uncertainty ([52:38–61:16])

  • Both Dan and Kristin admit to ongoing grief and anxiety around the possibility of non-existence after death, describing the psychological loss in moving from religious certainty to open questions.
  • Quote:
    “...to go from that to then not knowing is a deep loss...ones that are honestly devastating to a certain extent.” – Kristin ([58:51])
  • Literary touches: Schlossberg’s writing, Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens, fiction as a tool for truth.

• Philosophical Reflections

  • The question of meaning and justice if this is “all there is.”
  • Value of a religious outlook, even if not all historical claims are defendable.
  • Memorable Moment:
    “If I were God, I’d still create the universe. From what I know of it. You can quote me on that.” – Dan ([54:24])

6. Making Meaning through Limits

• Legacy and Finite Agency ([72:24–87:31])
  • They discuss how knowing our “real limits” can help us live authentically and fully—embracing agency, responsibility, and the finite nature of life.
  • The power of willingly choosing causes to live and die for (personal, communal, artistic, familial).
  • Existential therapy’s “promise”:
    • Choosing to confront or avoid mortality shapes the fullness of life experienced. Modernity offers endless ways to “float above” rather than confront this reality.
    • Quote:
      “There’s real life on the other side of this. The only way is through...You can stay looking at the shadows...Or you can fucking climb out of the cave and go see the real world in the light of the sun. That’s the pitch.” – Dan ([76:35])
  • Grief, legacy, and seeing meaning in what one was “willing to die for.”
    Quote:
    “When value and meaning coincide with the finitude of life and the reality of death, it has a way of clarifying the stakes and the intensity…” – Dan ([81:50])
  • Final musings on facing suffering, mortality, and the possibilities for personal growth—including humor and vulnerability.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “I've never felt mortality...I have a timeline. I am finite. I guess my finitude hit me in a new way.”
  – Kristin ([06:13])

• “Death is on my mind. Finitude’s on my mind. And also recognizing how much we don’t want it to be on our minds, how much we push it off of our minds.”
  – Kristin ([10:42])

• “As you accept it and then build your life consciously from within those limits. Because again, that's what we all have to do if we’re going to be honest.”
  – Dan ([20:28])

• “Maybe [religion] obviates a certain kind of pain...that contributes to art being good.”
  – Dan ([26:06])

• “It was almost jarring...She was the one dying slow. But then all of a sudden, it was fast.”
  – Kristin ([41:19])

• “So much of what we do seems ultimately designed for us...so that we can get on with our fucking lives and stop thinking about this.”
  – Dan ([45:05])

• “...to go from that [religious certainty] to then not knowing is a deep loss...ones that are honestly devastating to a certain extent.”
  – Kristin ([58:51])

• “If I were God, I’d still create the universe. From what I know of it. You can quote me on that.”
  – Dan ([54:24])

• “There’s real life on the other side of this. The only way is through...You can stay looking at the shadows...Or you can fucking climb out of the cave and go see the real world in the light of the sun. That’s the pitch.”
  – Dan ([76:35])

• “When value and meaning coincide with the finitude of life and the reality of death, it has a way of clarifying the stakes and the intensity…”
  – Dan ([81:50])

Key Timestamps by Segment

• 00:08–02:26: Welcome, context for the episode, brief catch-up
• 02:21–07:03: Kristin’s diagnosis, new motherhood, personal confrontation with mortality
• 07:03–11:10: Experiences of "dying fast and slow," Schlossberg essay, current cultural context
• 11:11–17:57: What MS/CIS is, fears around illness, medical advances, meaning and disability
• 18:27–23:43: Existential therapy, the “gift” of limitation, clarifying meaning
• 26:06–30:24: Suffering and art, religious answers versus creative profundity
• 39:03–45:43: Grief rituals, death in culture, personal and societal avoidance
• 52:38–61:16: Fear of non-existence, theological uncertainty, meaning after religious loss
• 72:24–87:31: Facing limits, legacy, existential therapy’s value, finding meaning in limitation

Tone & Style

The tone is vulnerable, honest, occasionally irreverent (with “a little bit of cussing”), and deeply philosophical. Dan and Kristin weave personal stories with theory, pop culture, theology, and literature, using humor and candor to make existential subjects both engaging and meaningful.

Summary for New Listeners

This episode stands alone as a profound exploration of mortality, loss, and meaning-making. Through personal stories and reflective dialogue, Dan and Kristin illuminate how facing death (in both sudden and protracted forms) pushes us toward authenticity, deeper meaning, and genuine agency—and how modern life, culture, and even religion offer both obstacles and resources along the way. This is an ideal listen for anyone grappling with existential questions, recent loss, or the search for purpose amidst life’s givens.