My mother once told me that one of the worst things about the death of someone you know is that the world goes on. It doesn’t flinch one bit. Someone dies, and stocks are still traded. Someone dies, and classes still meet. Someone dies, and your bills are still due.
I reflected on this because I have recently had several conversations about death. While these conversations centered around the death of criminals and alleged criminals, the sentiment is the same. The first few were about the show Dexter and how murder is not the answer. Now, importantly, this show is orchestrated in such a way that it paints its serial killer protagonist in a positive light. He kills, indirectly, for those who have been murdered or those who are about to be. One party to the conversation was a big fan, another couldn’t have disagreed more. The last few conversations were about the death (murder?) of a man who was robbing a store in Oakland. Comments on the story ranged from the cold to the sick with praise for the good work of the police to praise for their marksmanship and savings of taxpayer money by circumventing a trial. Like I said, sick.
Anyhow, something I read today helped me with both of these. Remember this when you think the world doesn’t care, remember this when you celebrate victory in a war, as if there were such a thing, and remember this whenever a life is taken for granted or if you are about to do the same.
An excerpt from For Whom the Bell Tolls:
Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes
off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his
ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove
it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this
world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by
the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s
death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.
John Donne [via]
March 09, 2010, 2:08am Comments
