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admits. So her passing hit them all equally hard. And it brought up the existential question of which is worse for a loved one – a quick, painless death, without closure, or a protracted illness, wherein relatives have time to tie up loose ends?“ And I’ ve heard it both ways,” Sanders muses.“ When it’ s slow and really horrific to watch happen, some people are like,‘ I wish this would have happened quickly – this is wrong and undeserved.’ And I’ ve heard other people when it’ s quicker, go,‘ Oh, my God – I didn’ t have time to say goodbye!’ So I guess it’ s just bad, either way.” Which leads to the moral of the story, a variation on the old Nike slogan. How many times have you attended a funeral or memorial service, bumped into a friend from the past, and both scratched your heads, wondering why you haven’ t how it’ s a therapy for us, because we pull positives from this severe darkness. And so can you. So it’ s basically how we deal with grief, and I’ ve never realized until now how incredibly powerful a positive attitude is. For me, personally, being hit with something this heavy, it was like,‘ Alright – we’ re going to do whatever it takes to get through this.’ Otherwise, I could have easily gone into a stupor, put my head in a corner and cried in a fetal position and just started the downward spiral into nothing. So we’ re thankful to have this place where we can put all these thoughts and moments of grief and anger, and create something good out of it.”
The Brendan O’ Brien-produced Emperor has a Far Eastern, almost Indian feel, even though it ends in the verdant jaguar jungles of Mexico. Those influences
26 illinoisentertainer. com march 2017 stayed in touch? he asks, rhetorically. Then you make plans to get together again, but you rarely follow through – the fast pace of your individual careers, and indeed life itself, practically precludes it.“ I’ ve had that conversation, and I’ ve overheard that conversation, dozens of times,” he says.“ So one of the bottom lines of this record of ours is, if you’ ve been planning a trip, or you want to upgrade your house, or you want to take your parents on this vacation, or do something special with your girlfriend or wife? Just do it. That’ s something that no one should need to be reminded of.”
And yet … Our very online-centered culture is leading inextricably to a numb, depersonalization, best exemplified in that classic South Park episode where the family loses the Internet, and has to pack up the station wagon and searching for it like Dust Bowl Okies. And when two long-distance chatroom chums finally meet face to face at a migrant-workers camp, they have absolutely no idea what to say to each other without the safe distance of their devices. With the web up and running again, they’ ll text each other when they get back home, they nervously tell each other. Mastodon stands as the warm, heartfelt antithesis to such cold, clinical technology.“ And we’ re comfortable writing about all this because, One, that’ s how we prefer to write, being very real, and Two, it’ s extremely relatable,” Sanders elaborates.“ Everyone on Earth has been – or will be – touched by something horrific or tragic, so we’ re sharing this, and how we think, and didn’ t pop up by accident. When the Sanders clan was blindsided by the deadly disease, they didn’ t have time to react – they had to treat it immediately, with trusted Western methods like radiation and chemotherapy, which seem to have worked. But that didn’ t stop the man from considering other forms of medicine from around the world, like Mexico’ s Hoxley Clinic, which has a highly successful remission rate, or the basic diet in India, where the cancer rate is much lower than in fast-food-devouring America.“ I can’ t believe that I wasn’ t awakened to those numbers a long time ago,” he says.“ But a lot of times, you’ re uneducated about things until a subject really hits you. So when this hit, one of my first thoughts was,‘ I’ d like to explore alternative methods.’ But there was no time to explore that. So we’ ve summoned the spirit of the jaguar god, and Mexico is a place that we want to travel. And we want to visit the Hoxley Clinic and just talk to people there, because we find it fascinating. So maybe we’ ll tie that in with a beach vacation down there or something.”
This, in part, explains why Sanders was a Game of Thrones no-show – real life simply demanded that he be somewhere else. Somewhere more gut-level important. And real life, John Lennon once said, is what happens when you’ re busy making other plans. What has Sanders learned from Mastodon’ s trial by fire? He has a ready response.“ The first thing that comes to mind is how I spend my time,” he says.
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