From Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions: Would it disturb you much if, upon your death, your body were thrown into the woods and left to rot? Why?

Personally, it wouldn’t disturb me in the slightest. I mean, what do I care what happens to my meat suit after I’ve vacated the premises? I certainly won’t be using it anymore. My consciousness will be long gone, off to whatever awaits us in the great beyond. So as far as I’m concerned, you can chuck my corpse into the nearest forest and let nature take its course. The worms and bacteria need to eat too, after all.

That’s why I’m an organ donor. If any of my spare parts can be used to help someone else keep on ticking after I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, then by all means, harvest away! Take what you need and toss the rest. Heck, I’d even be fine with having my skeleton donated to a medical school or my taxidermied remains displayed in the natural history museum. “Here lies John Doe, Homo sapiens sapiens, 1980-2060.” It would be my little contribution to science and public education.

Barring that, I’d rather just be cremated. Burial takes up too much real estate, if you ask me. I don’t need an eternal resting place, and I certainly don’t want anybody wasting their time coming to visit a slab of granite with my name on it every year. Just burn me up, sprinkle the ashes somewhere nice, and be done with it. Have a toast in my honor, share some laughs and memories, and then move on with your lives.

I know this attitude might strike some as a bit cavalier or irreverent, but I don’t mean it that way. I deeply respect that some folks have strong religious, cultural or personal preferences about how their earthly remains should be handled. There’s nothing at all wrong with wanting a proper burial, eternal flames, mummification, a sky burial on the Tibetan plateau, or your ashes pressed into a vinyl record. You do you.

But for me, the fate of my inanimate body just isn’t something I get too worked up over. I’ll be dead, after all, and therefore unable to appreciate or care about whatever indignities might befall my mortal coil. So sure, throw me in the woods for the wolves and buzzards. Or a ditch. Or the town dump. I won’t take it personally, I promise. I’ll be too busy haunting my enemies and watching over my loved ones from the spirit realm to worry about such trivial concerns.

But what about you, dear reader? Does the idea of improper corpse disposal give you the heebie-jeebies? Are you meticulously planning your grand funeral and burial down to the last detail? Would you come back and poltergeist the entire forest if your lifeless body was just left there to decay au natural? Share your views in the comments! And don’t worry, this is all hypothetical… for now.