Hello Alasdair! Many apologies if I came across as belligerent; I was upset and heated when I wrote my response to this story, and my agitation I probably did not realize how inconsiderate I was being.
Alasdair's outro I also thought fell flat.
Sorry this one didn't work for you. To quote Ed Wood 'What did you think of my new movie? You hated it? You thought it was one of the worst films you've ever seen? Well, you'll like my next one better.' Hopefully:)
I did not so much think your in/outro was bad, so much as I was disappointed when you did not provide some badly needed balance to this story. Usually you provide something of a counterpoint or deeper insight, but in this case you seemed to simply carry the author’s flag.
How about examining both sides of the issue here? Instead, he talks about how the world should be some magic "better place" where disasters never occur?
I'm going to ask you politely, and once, to tone down what I'm seeing as an overly belligerent tone there. If you want to discuss, in this thread, what the other side of the issue is, then I'd be interested to hear it. I'm always interested in new perspectives (The moment where my wife pointed out how horrifically gender unbalanced pretty much every TV show we watch regularly is? Utterly blew my mind, changed my view of them forever) and I'm more than happy to change my own view in light of evidence or experience, but if all you want to do is tell me how wrong you think I am, then that ground's already been covered.
I realize the irony in criticizing you for being shallow, then providing my own shallow rebuttal. I was just trying to shorten an already long rant. Let me give you my counterpoint: You suggest that in a “better world” there “shouldn’t be any” charities, because there would be no disasters. You say “things should be better, for everyone.” I think the major flaw in your reasoning here is that you are ascribing moral characteristics to a universe which has none. You seem to describe the disasters as “bad” – but that is a theistic concept grounded in Western religious thought. Nature’s actions are not bad: they simply are. This is exactly what the revenant in the story failed to grasp. Her death was not “bad” nor was it “tragic” and it certainly was no one’s fault: it simply WAS. I had been hoping you would illuminate this, or a similar concept to our readers.
Much of human suffering results from our outrage over the actions of a universe which makes no moral judgments – the universe makes no sense to us, only because we expect it to make sense. I had hoped you would see the tragedy in the ghost’s selfishness and put it in perspective for us: natural disasters are bad to us humans, but to the cosmos they simply ARE. The ghost needed to realize that her death was not the result of a moral judgment, and ergo it deserved no righteous retribution in return. The ghost (and all of humanity) need(s) to accept that what we see as “natural tragedies” are simply part of Nature’s grand scheme – they are not cruel punishments upon us. We should help the survivors, mourn the dead, but most importantly ACCEPT that the world is the way it is and that Nature both destroys and creates without holding one higher than the other. To wish for a world without this cycle is to live in a state of denial and disharmony. Ergo, we have invented superstitions like “gods” or “spirits” to explain how these terrible (to us) things happen. We ignore the absolutely commonplace fact that life is just as meaningless as death – and, ergo, just as important. One must realize that if everything is meaningless and unimportant, the reverse is also true – everything is just as meaningful, and just as important. Your birth is on equal footing with the genesis of the Pleadies Cluster. Your death carries all the cosmic weight of a supernova.
I do not mean to be rude here, but I felt your outro was solidly grounded in theistic, moral, Christian thought. Where disasters are seen as negative, sinful and undesirable. In a sense, they are actually positive, glorious and desireable: they allow the cycle of life to continue, they make more life where there was none, and they provide the strife which is just as important as the peace. But, in truth, they (and Nature) are none of these things: they simply ARE. Ergo, it is absurd to judge them.
My best friend died of leukaemia when he, and I, were both 17. It was his third bout with the disease in, if I remember correctly, three years. I know very well how natural death is. I also know how capricious and random and pointless it is, something which was driven home to me eight years later when two school friends died in motorbike accidents less than a year apart. Right now, my mother is in remission from a bout of lymphoma. If she goes the next four years without it returning, then there's an above average chance she's in the clear. If she doesn't, then it will have be treated again and the meatgrinder that 2009 was for my entire family will start all over again.
I feel for you and your family, I truly do. I am not here to offend, but only to offer counterpoint. You view your friends’ deaths as “pointless” because your worldview demands everything have a point. This ties into what I was saying earlier: disasters, to you, are bad because they MUST have a point. And, since they are negative to humans, their point must be negative – their existence is negative. Life does not have a “point” – life simply is. Enjoy it while it is here. Keep your friends memories in your heart and cherish them, but to not rail against “capricious” fate for taking them from you. Simply accept that their lives are over now – neither for good, nor for bad, neither important to Nature, nor unimportant – but important to you.
This brings me to my final point: in the universe, no thing is of greater or less importance than another. No thing holds more or less value. To Nature, the death of Jesus Christ was just as unremarkable as the birth of a gnat; the birth of Hitler just as remarkable as the death of a galaxy. But in the Temple of your mind, your Will is absolute: you alone determine what is important and what is unimportant. You alone determine what is Right, and what is Wrong. Those things are not inherent, and they are not for Nature to decide. If you declare the death of a thousand Indonesians in tsunami unimportant,
then they are if you declare them important
then it will be. But only to you. Not to the universe, not to Nature.
In this manner, we can see that the Will alone determines the shape of the moral sphere. Man is center of his solar system, he is “heliocentric force on two legs.” To allow the doctrines of others (be they Jehova or Christ, Zues or Olympus, Muhammad or Allah, Buddha or Lao Tzu) to determine or shape your course of action is utter folly. Life and death are both opposite sides of the same coin. Nature determines the result of the toss, but only you determine where, when and to who it is important.
Apologies for the length of this response: it turned out to be something of a dissertation on my world-view, rather than a plain rebuttal.
So yeah, death's natural. It comes to us all and my own death holds very little fear for me. The death of the ones I love though? The loss of the people who make my life what it is? That's a terror.
I am not a nihilist. I do not hold that life has no value or purpose. I will not for one moment pretend that the loss of one’s loved ones is irrelevant. One should always fight to preserve himself and those who are so near and dear to him that they are a part of himself. But one must also accept loss. Failing to protect a loved one is a terror, but death itself? Let that not be a Terror in your mind. Be fearful of losing them whilst they are here, but once they are gone, just keep their memories close and accept. Do not shout “Why did this happen?” You will only drive yourself crazy – the universe has no answer.
Yeah it does, but for some people it's harder to move on from the endings than to embrace the beginnings. At this stage in my life, I would count myself as one of those people.
I apologize if I have offended you: it was not my intent. I just seek to remind you (and our ghost) that the endings are just as equal and important as the beginnings.
Incidentally, regarding the Abraham Lincoln, that's both an astounding piece of technology and a genuinely astounding of compassion and humanitarianism (Which, if it wasn't a word before, I appear to have just invented) and I have nothing but admiration for it. I have friends in the armed services, law enforcement and medicine, I'm the son of a career nurse and I have the utmost respect and admiration for people doing those lines of work.
I also find it fascinating that what Warren Ellis called 'rescue fiction' hasn't taken off more. This is the sort of stuff I grew up on, Gerry Anderson series like Thunderbirds and, to a lesser extent, Captain Scarlet following the groups of people who stand between us and the bad things and pick us up when the bad things happen. Third Watch was pretty much rescue fiction I suspect, as was Trauma, a show absolutely no one but me liked and Ellis' own Global Frequency is a pretty much definitive example of it. It's a fascinating genre and there deserves to be more of it.
It really, truly is an amazing machine. And the fact that it and its crew of thousands were diverted from their mission to Hong Kong (presumably, then a war mission in Iraq) to perform humanitarian aid is remarkable. I think this is what made my blood boil about this story. The West (America in particular) gets constantly criticized by people like our “ghost” who see only the “rich man’s rain” and not all the charity, humanity and aid so freely given.
Thank you for responding and for indulging me in my rant. Apologies if I have seemed mean or heartless, again none of that is my intent. I hope I have given you something to think about.
And don’t worry, I enjoy about 99% percent of your in/outros – one or two is bound to disappoint sometimes!