Tuesday 18 January 2005

Pic of the day: Screenshot from the anime Narue no Sekai ("World of Narue"), an anime from Japan where tsunamis are a part of real life.

Support group??

So, the survivors and the relatives of those who did not survive the tsunami in the Indian Ocean are about to organize a "support group". (Not the Indonesians, I presume, they seem to be preparing to resume the war that God momentarily put on hold when He showed them real "mass destruction". I hear the fundamentalist Islamists in Aceh are enraged that Christian aid organizations are working in the area.) No, I'm talking about my countrymen here in Norway. We will supposedly be burdened with yet another "support group".

It turned out, not surprisingly, that we're missing like 70 Norwegian rather than four hundred (or a thousand, as the Prime Minister hinted at). Around 20 are actually confirmed to be dead. Of course, those who are dead are VERY dead. But that works both ways. Those who died on the shores of Phuket are no deader than those who died from a heart infarct. A child dead in the tsunami is a horrible loss for a mother or father, but no more so than one who died from leukemia or one who got run over by a car.

We already have a support group for survivors and those left behind by the Scandinavian Star ferry accident, and I believe also the Estonia ferry accident, or was that the Sleipner ferry accident? All of the above? Anyway, despite the occasional public statement by these groups, the dead remain dead and little else has happened. What more can they accomplish this time? A class action suit against God?

***

It's not like I am entirely unable to sympathize. It's not like I haven't carried someone close to me to the grave, and would prefer that they had still been alive and well. Certainly I am not amused by the prospect of my own eventual demise. As a fellow DAoC player put it, in words I am unlikely to forget soon: "Dying suxx."

Each death is important, remarkable and a life-changing event even for those who just watch it. I think we should cut people some slack if they decide to be a drama queen in public. Hey, there could probably be more of it: In good old days, people would tear their clothes and throw ashes on their head and wail loudly in the village square. Given that this is often how they feel, I think this should be accepted, perhaps even encouraged in the case of parents, spouses and small children grieving over an early demise. Somewhat more subdued in the case of a natural termination of a long life.

Grief is natural. Making grief into an institution is another matter. Weeks, months of working on the change in your life, yes. But to found an organization dedicated to keeping the wounds open? I am sorry, but I think that is psychological self-mutilation. I am sorry to see people do this to themselves. But then again I consider humans to be in a sorry state by default, due to their pervasive stupidity, both the one they cannot help and the one they will not let go of. This "support group", I firmly believe, is a case of unnecessary stupidity. It can only come from the weird idea that some deaths are more important than others. On the contrary, say I, death is the one occasion in which the king and the beggar are finally equal. The ritual around their interment may be vastly different, but they are both equally dead. Dying far from home is no different from that. You are just as dead, no less and no more.

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As for the survivors: No, you don't deserve special treatment. Whether you survive a tsunami or an avalanche or an apartment fire is just the same. Don't try to be exotic. You're special and unique like a snowflake ... just like everyone else.