Tuesday, July 28, 2009

I Think We Know the Answer Now: UPDATED (see below)

Dan Rather used to have a CBS "minute" to discuss whatever he wanted. I remember this on KNX 1070 (traffic every 10 minutes).
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Once, in the early 1990s, his commentary was about those of us, who were a younger generation, losing their gay male friends left and right in rapid succession. (Lynn is correct, a lot of people had a ton of gay friends that were dying, it wasn't just gay men losing friends). He said, beyond being sad and horrible, it was also a unique moment. Rarely had an entire group of people, otherwise normal and in a advanced society, lost so many friends so early.
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His take was that usually you lost distant relatives, grandparents, and ultimately, parents before death became an everyday event. He wondered how we would react over the long term.
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So, here is the answer. It was like an emotional scab, that took a long time to heal. We grew hardened to death, but convinced we would live life more fully, not postpone things and be better people. And, I think, for a time we did. But scabs heal and people forget. It turns out that we grew to forget that time.
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And now, as we age, we are coming up to death and pain a second time. It hits us (okay me) differently. Sometimes I am understanding and okay with it. Sometimes - usually when I have had a chance to deal with it ahead of time) I can call up my scar tissue and be fine. Really... fine.
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But other times, when it hits me out of the blue, I crash. Unprepared, I (rarely, but occasionally) freak out. Anxiety overcomes me. Everything I strive to be okay with, overcomes me and comes rushing out at once.
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So there you have it. Dan Rather's answer. We learned to deal with pain. We learned to honor those who died by living as best we could. ... And then we forgot. And we will have to learn it all again
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And I think that is good. You can't live your life forever bitter and regretful. Embarrassed or ashamed that so many of your friends died for so little reason. You can't keep those things tamped down forever.
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I do wish I knew a little earlier when they were going to come flying out though :-)
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Updated: From Eddie Tonight
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Here is where I agree: Bad news delivered at warp speed really sucks. Having insight knowing something may be wrong helps give you a way to start to deal with it.

Here is where I disagree: Scott lost many friends when he was young. For different reasons, so did I. We learned.... and in my opinion it was not just a scab. We learned to live life like today was our last. We learned not to have meaningless quarrels with each other, because it just isn't worth it in the long run. We learned that we should work to live, not live to work. Be great at who you are and what you do.

We learned a lot, and (without having any evidence to the contrary) have had a better life than perhaps we would have had. Tough to prove, but so is the benefit of never having McCain/Palin take office in the White House.

Ed