Every day events take place around the world, some worthy of international attention and 24 hour news coverage, others maybe a glance from a passing stranger. Most of the time we can ignore the terrible things happening around us, one can hear about people dying in some country half a world away and briefly think sadly about it, yet that is all it is. It also seems that from safe distance one can even justify death for the sake of ‘a greater good’… I’d better stop this part here, as the temptation to be sidetracked into a different topic is too strong. I’ll continue with thoughts about our proximity to tragedy and it’s effects, as the old saying goes it’s hard when something hits close to home.

Although I can’t help but ask why? Should it matter how close we are to something to care? Or even why should we be affected because of how close we are to it?

Let’s take an example of death. I’m often reminded of a song by (in my opinion) an extremely underrated and misunderstood musician:

“The death of one is tragedy, the death of millions is just a statistic”

Honestly it is the truth, we can easily shrug off a headline from a newspaper declaring rising death tolls it some country we haven’t even heard of, though one can be absolutely devastated by the death of someone close. The simplest explanation is that we care most about who we know, family and friends, yet to varying degrees as interpersonal relationships are - What does hell does that mean?!

Can one feel loss as strongly for a faceless stranger half a world away, compared to a close loved one? Conversely could one be as nonchalant is the situation were reversed? Either scenario would probably make for a pretty unhealthy individual, either paralysed by emotional suffering or cold heartedly indifferent.

All above situations seem distasteful for some reason… I guess I’d like to think that it isn’t because of shallowness that people use degrees of separation to feel anything about the death of someone. Perhaps it is just a way of surviving in a world where death is a part of life, or it could be that when we are faced with the passing of someone close we are reminded of own lack of power to prevent it. There doesn’t seem to be anything we can do when someone dies in front of us… actually that’s not exactly true I suppose.

There is always prayer, I don’t think it matters what form it takes and it really is much, but spending a moment of ones life to acknowledge the passing of another is something precious. It does seem like a small thing but the more I think about it, there really is nothing more valuable to give than a moment of life, to offer peaceful rest, enlightenment, safe journey to the next incarnation or any other wish for a life ended.

I guess I could try to expand more, but really… life’s too short, and one can either understand or question the meaning in the previous paragraph – either is fine with me.