We have come to rely on the dead to offer clarity about who we are and what we will become. We make them work overtime to sate our curiosities and pacify our fears.

In Victorian times, the pauper funeral signalled abject poverty and low morality and in order to avoid this stigma, many working-class people made great sacrifices to pay regular and relatively significant amounts to burial clubs. What lingers today is the common misconception that overspending on funerals has a direct correlation to dignity.

It is not uncommon for dying people who are suffering badly to refuse food and fluids while they are still able to eat and drink, in order to hasten death. Some terminally ill people make the trip to an overseas jurisdiction while they are still well enough to fly and take a drink, meaning that they usually die significantly sooner than they would wish to, still in functioning health. Others choose to kill themselves while they still have the physical capacity, currently at a rate of more than one a week in Australia.