Oh but I do. There's no shortage of phony self-centered people in the world around me. Through a little effort and a ton of luck I ended up living and interacting with a lot of entitled people, obsessed with their petty tragedies which they hurry to encase in heavy golden frames and put on public display in the most prestigious art gallery in town.
I live in the world where about half the inhabitants don't eat meat out of "moral concerns" absolutely ignoring the grim reality of most of the world that will eat whatever food they have, and a lot of the time would have none.
People who protest about political causes in lands and cultures they don't understand because a propaganda ad featuring a bruised child in a pile of rubble made them feel sad.
People throwing themselves at the police at another pointless protest rally, only to be greeted at the police station by a mug of hot chocolate and be dispatched home to sleep in their soft and cozy beds.
There's nothing deep or special in this "loss". It make sense to mourn the loss of a life of a young man committing suicide because he was abandoned by the world around him. And I've seen that. It makes sense to mourn the loss of life of a young woman who got hooked up on heroin and died of overdose after an attempted recovery--and I've seen that too. It makes sense to regret the loss of young child's life, whose entire family was killed by poorly planned and poorly executed missile attack. Because such loss of life was avoidable, it took something that had a potential and squandered it. Old people dying of old age is nothing like any of the above. It's what's supposed to happen. It's how I want to go. It's how I want for everyone I care about to go.
I've spent enough time with ER to develop strong feeling of disgust for people who start crying "oh but my mom, she was only ninety-three!" and then latching onto the doctor's sleeves preventing them from tending to other patients. These also tend to show in large family groups and block the entire department for hours by driving attention to themselves with loud wining, arguing with the medical staff and other people in the ER. Demanding unlimited attention due to their "devastating loss". Demanding that the medical staff instantly produce all sorts of forms, perform all kinds of unnecessary procedures, basically, only to drive attention to themselves.
I live in the world where about half the inhabitants don't eat meat out of "moral concerns" absolutely ignoring the grim reality of most of the world that will eat whatever food they have, and a lot of the time would have none.
People who protest about political causes in lands and cultures they don't understand because a propaganda ad featuring a bruised child in a pile of rubble made them feel sad.
People throwing themselves at the police at another pointless protest rally, only to be greeted at the police station by a mug of hot chocolate and be dispatched home to sleep in their soft and cozy beds.
There's nothing deep or special in this "loss". It make sense to mourn the loss of a life of a young man committing suicide because he was abandoned by the world around him. And I've seen that. It makes sense to mourn the loss of life of a young woman who got hooked up on heroin and died of overdose after an attempted recovery--and I've seen that too. It makes sense to regret the loss of young child's life, whose entire family was killed by poorly planned and poorly executed missile attack. Because such loss of life was avoidable, it took something that had a potential and squandered it. Old people dying of old age is nothing like any of the above. It's what's supposed to happen. It's how I want to go. It's how I want for everyone I care about to go.
I've spent enough time with ER to develop strong feeling of disgust for people who start crying "oh but my mom, she was only ninety-three!" and then latching onto the doctor's sleeves preventing them from tending to other patients. These also tend to show in large family groups and block the entire department for hours by driving attention to themselves with loud wining, arguing with the medical staff and other people in the ER. Demanding unlimited attention due to their "devastating loss". Demanding that the medical staff instantly produce all sorts of forms, perform all kinds of unnecessary procedures, basically, only to drive attention to themselves.