Judging the Dead

People seem to be compelled to -upon the death of a family member, friend, co-worker, celebrity or acquaintance- make an almost instant, and irrevocable absolute value judgment on the virtue of the life and character of the deceased. Think about it; it’s rare to hear mixed reviews, so to speak, of the deceased at his own wake, or around town in the days following his death. It’s more likely that you’ll hear something like:

"He was such a good man." Photo by Simon Howden.

“It’s a shame that the old bugger died and all, but he really was a terrible fellow. He spanked his children and beat his wife.”

           

OR

“You know, life dealt him some tough blows, but he was a really great guy with the best of intentions.”

I wonder if this tendency to make a summative value judgment of the life and character of the deceased is what is commonly known as closure. If that’s the case, then closure is about choosing to reduce a person, and a whole life down to a single notion of who, or what you choose to believe the deceased was – what he meant to you, what he meant to others, his actions, his omissions, his thoughts, beliefs and values, all boiled down to a definitive positive or negative judgment.

For a person who made a negative judgment of the deceased following his death, she almost definitely made that initial judgment based on her own unpleasant, negative, perhaps even violent, embarrassing or degrading experiences of him. While it’s possible that the deceased was “bad”, and at fault for these interactions, I wonder, with the judgment having been made so instantaneously following the death, if the judge may not have played some role in the negativity of these interactions with the deceased. But by affirming with herself the evil nature of the deceased, immediately following his death, the surviving judge has released herself of any guilt and responsibility for those negative interactions, regardless of the truth of the situation.

For a person who made a positive judgment of the deceased following his death, he almost definitely made that initial judgment based on his own pleasant, positive, perhaps even joyful, friendly or amorous experiences of the deceased. While it’s possible that everything was cupcakes and puppy dogs in the relationship between the sympathetic judge and the deceased, I wonder if, given the haste with which the judgment was made, if the sympathetic judge didn’t experience some negative interactions with the deceased that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. By making a summarily good judgment of the deceased, the sympathetic judge had alleviated himself of any guilt associated with any negative interactions between him and the deceased that may have occurred, and his possible responsibility for any such interactions.

I can’t really make any absolute and irrevocable value judgment of the practice of almost immediately branding the deceased a good or bad man following his death, and I’m probably not the most qualified judge in the case given that I have yet to experience any significantly profound loss in my own life. I am, however, interested in the affect that this practice has down the road. Think of any family member, family friend, or even famous person who died before you were born. With the exception of famous people (and the odd family member or friend) whose own wittings, audio or video recordings may be available to you, your notion of any one of these people is almost entirely based upon the value judgment made by those around you (your parents, relatives, etc.), who knew the deceased,. Ask anyone whose grandfather passed away either before their birth, or when they were very young, and I bet most of them have either a summarily positive notion of him as a hard-working and loving husband and father, or a completely negative notion of him as a hard-living, alcoholic, neglectful father, and abusive husband – either way, the judgment must have been perpetuated by those around them (i.e. their parents, etc.), since they barely, if ever even knew their grandfather.

I can recall the mythology of my grandfather when I was young. In fact, both of my grandfathers had very positive associations for both of my parents, so at a young age, these two invisible men who I had never, nor would I ever meet, often melded into one. In fact, I can recall, at a very young age, confusing the myth of my grandfather(s) with that of another invisible man who I had never, nor would I ever meet. I distinctly recall being confused as to whether it had been Jesus or Grandpa who had been nailed to the cross. Or maybe Jesus had nailed Grandpa to the cross? Or were they both crucified? I couldn’t figure it out, and I’m sure I lost a few nights of sleep over it.

With the complexities of living and dying, and then having a whole other life after death of which you have no control, but is determined only by the value judgments of your life made by others following your death, I think I’ll be a little more careful about how I life my life. And I’m thankful I only have to do it once!

Playing the Blame Game

Do you ever fall victim to minor colloquial misfortunes that are so inconvenient that they must have been the manifestation of someone’s mastermind plan to ruin your day? Of course you do.

I blame Teerapun for this image!

When you stubbed your toe last week on the threshold of a door in your own home, your first thought was that your landlord, cleaning lady or handy roommate must have built up that threshold when you weren’t looking, for the sole purpose of having you trip over it, and break your neck. By the time you grabbed your throbbing big toe, yelling out obscenities in pain, it was all clear to you; your vengeful roommate had to have been the responsible party – it was probably in retribution for that day earlier in the week when you failed to re-fill the milk jug!

Yesterday morning, I journeyed, westbound, along the Trans Canada Highway. The previous night had brought about 30 cm. of wet, heavy snow. As unpleasant as it was, I made, what I considered to be, a reasonable effort to clear the snow off of my car in the morning, including that which sat on top of my roof, and coated my brake lights. As I drove along the highway, the wetness remaining on the pavement from the melted snow sprayed up onto my windshield from the rear wheels of the cars traveling in front of me. This sludge – some combination of melted snow, mud and road salt, I think – completely impeded my field of vision every thirty seconds or so. This meant that I had to constantly spray the windshield with my precious, and dwindling supply of windshield washer fluid, until the indicator light on my dashboard began to flash to tell me that it needed to be re-filled.

Like you and your toe, of course, I was not able to simply accept this spraying of sludge on my windshield as an inescapable fact of winter driving. No. It seemed to me, at the time, to be an incontrovertible fact that the other drivers on the road were maliciously spraying me with this filthy sludge. They probably stored their mélange in tanks under their cars, and sprayed it through invisible nozzles next to the exhaust pipe with a push of a button located conveniently next to the cup holder, inside their car. And next to that button, there was probably another button; this button, I was sure, when pressed, would shoot hunks of ice and snow off of the roof of their cars, striking my windshield.

I was willing to bet that these perpetrators were probably the same shady characters who were behind the inexplicable, sudden and unexpected change in water temperature in my shower that morning. One minute, the water felt great, and the next, I was jumping back, squealing, my eyes burning with shampoo, and my skin being scolded by the near boiling water. Someone has to be held to account! Right?

I think we’re much quicker to place blame, usually on innocent, or unwitting parties, when the offence against us is, in reality of little consequence. We so passionately, and sometimes even vocally, in cases like this, toss out blame without thought. Why are we willing to place blame in such insignificant cases, when, logically, we know that the accused party is almost certainly not to blame. My guess is that, like the incident that provoked the blame, placing blame is of little consequence. A serious conflict is not likely to be sparked, because the accused instantly recognized the absurdity of the accusation, and is able to shrug it off, taking no offence.

What we seem to be less willing to do, is to place blame for more serious transgressions, when the guilty party can be clearly identified. We’re afraid of sparking conflict. While people can shrug off an absurd and clearly false accusation, they’re much more sensitive to being called out for something for which they are actually responsible. They will deny, or make excuses, and escalate the situation.

All of this is not to say that we should never assign blame to those who are guilty. I’m not really sure what it all means, but maybe we should keep it all in mind next time we’re thinking of playing the blame game.

Blogging in Ink!

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Radio Head

With the advent of so many new forms of media that came with the technological age and the Internet, many traditional mediums of communication have come to be seen as obsolete. Rather than read the classifieds in the newspaper, nowadays people log onto Craigslist, Ebay or Kijiji; instead of tuning into the evening news at 11:00 on TV to find out what’s going on in the world, we watch the latest news report online on the Onion News Network whenever we please; and there’s no need to peruse celebrity tabloids at the grocery store checkout when we can just as easily load our Facebook news feeds on our smart phones to find out what all of our casual acquaintances are up to.

Radio is still relevant to me. How about you?
Image by Tungphoto.

There is, however, one traditional medium, which I still find to be quite relevant and interesting in my life. While many of you have probably ditched your radios in favour of iPod play lists, I believe that over-the-air radio is a medium worth holding onto.

I know that the reason many people prefer a personalized play list to a disc jockey’s lineup is that it gives them full control over what they hear. As someone who has very little critical knowledge of music, beyond being able to say that either I like or do not like a song, or genre of music, I find choosing a comprehensive list of songs to be a daunting task. I would much rather choose a genre that I would like to listen to, like rock, jazz or country, set the dial to a station, and let the disc jockey take it from there. It’s especially nice to be able to set it and forget it while driving in the car.

“But, don’t you hate all the darned commercials?” you might ask. I tend to see the inevitable advertisements that one must endure if they subscribe to my ‘set it and forget it’ method as the price that must be paid for having someone line up your play list for you. I, for one, am willing to pay that price. As a matter of fact, I quite enjoy listening to radio advertisements. Since radio is really the last surviving and not-dying form of local/regional media, you’re not subjected to the same boring standard national ads, as you are on Television or on the Internet. In fact, radio ads tend to be quite eclectic, with local small business owners recording their own commercials, and updating them weekly.

When I lived in range of Toronto radio stations, I always told myself that the next time I was in need of a business suit, I would go down to “Korry’s Clothiers, 569 Danforth Avenue,” or “Tom’s Place, right in the heart of Greek Town”, or that if I ever needed to buy some jewelry, that I would get it from Jack Berkovits at Omni Jewelcrafters.

If you’ve moved to a new city, listening to local radio stations is a great way to get to know the area. You’ll be sure to hear about events going on in the area, and hear interviews and sound bites with local celebrities. Just last year, I strangely began listening online to a radio station out of Burlington, Vermont*. For whatever reason, I liked the station, and continued to listen. Now, almost a year later, I still listen to this station, and I feel like I know the Burlington Vermont area pretty well. Now that I live closer to Vermont, I would definitely consider driving down to the area for a weekend to check out some of the events that are promoted on the station, and I would very likely check out some of the businesses that advertise with them.

So here’s you’re homework class: go online an start listening to a local radio station broadcasting from a city that you’ve always wanted to visit, but never have, or a random city that you’ve never even hear of. If you’re at all like me, you’ll learn a lot, and build an interesting image in your mind of what that city must be like, based on what you’ve heard on the radio.

Thanks for tuning in!

*I started listening to this station in December because they carry a syndicated radio host who plays great Christmas music in the evening that wasn’t available in my local area. I ended up listening to them around the clock.

After you!

Last week, I was driving on a country road well after the sun had set, when I came to a one lane bridge.  I could see a set of headlights approaching from the opposite direction, so in the interest of safety, and common courtesy, I flashed my lights, signalling to the other driver an invitation for him to cross the bridge first.

Usually in instances such as this one, it would be expected of the other driver to gesture to me with a friendly wave of thanks as he passed, to indicate his gratitude for allowing him to cross the bridge ahead of me. However, given that this incident happened after sunset, it was not possible for me to see inside of the cockpit of his automobile, and therefore impossible for me to discern whether or not the other driver had attempted a gesture of gratitude. Interestingly, some of the first thoughts that ran through my head as I continued driving were along the lines of, why did I let him go first if I couldn’t even enjoy the satisfaction of receiving a wave of thanks?

In the grand scheme of things, it probably would have made very little difference if I hadn’t been so kind, and opted to cross the bridge ahead of the other driver. However, the question comes to mind, why do we practice what we like to consider simple acts of kindness? You may say it’s to make others feel good. Perhaps my allowing him to cross the bridge first did make the other driver feel good, but if that’s really why I chose to do so, then the follow-up question should be asked, why I like to make others feel good. I think most would answer this question similarly; making others feel good makes me feel good.

I’m just full of questions today. Would you continue to practice simple acts of kindness if the gratitude of others was never shown? In other words, would you still hold the door for someone even if they didn’t appreciate it, or if they failed to show their appreciation? Maybe the reason we feel good when we help others out is that we like the feeling of power it gives us. The wave of thanks we receive when we stop traffic in order to allow an old lady pull out of the roadside parking space in front of the bakery makes us feel good because we feel powerful in the sense that the wave indicates that we made the old lady feel good. “I made that old lady feel so thankful that she was compelled to express it to me,” says your subconscious. “I have power over her, and having power over others makes me feel good”.

I think the principle also works from the perspective of the old lady, or the guy I let pass on the bridge. The old lady’s subconscious is saying, “I know that if I give a wave of thanks, that guy who let me out will feel really good about himself, and I will have made him feel good. I’m powerful!”  Would she still express her thanks if there was a chance I wouldn’t appreciate the gesture, or if she knew I was likely not to see it? I’m reminded the scene from an episode of Seinfeld in which George drops a tip in a tip jar, but it goes unnoticed, so he attempts to take back the tip so he can drop it in again, so that this time the server will notice it.

Don’t become disillusioned with all of humanity though. It might seem like what I’m saying is that humans are only self interested and there is no genuine kindness in the world. As long as both the old lady who I let pull out of her parking space and I feel good about ourselves at the end of the interaction, what’s wrong with that?  So next time you have the opportunity to extend a simple courtesy to your fellow man, jump on the opportunity, and if one is extended to you, be sure to indicate your gratitude. Either way, you’ll walk away feeling powerful and fulfilled.

Great Expectations*

It’s been almost a month since I last wrote a blog entry. I had been trying to write weekly, but I got busy.  Not that it wasn’t on my mind; at the end of every week, I would lament the passing of another seven days without dumping a little pile of my ramblings into the cyber landfill that is the internet. If I didn’t share my musings with the virtual world, who would?

I realize that there are probably very few people, if any, besides myself who have come to expect regular blog postings of me. Any pressure I felt to get back on the blogging wagon came only from me (and my mother). However, this got me thinking about expectations.

Our world doesn’t generally accept singular accomplishments. As soon as someone has accomplished an admirable task, created a beautiful work of art, made an entertaining movie or written a riveting novel, there seems to be an immediate expectation that they follow up with another act of equal or greater impression. Do you ever hear the term “one hit wonder” used in the positive connotation? Other than….maybe Jesus, we rarely hear someone’s praises being sung** for doing one great thing, and never doing anything else of note ever again.

Once someone has impressed us, we beg them to do it again; to give us an encore presentation. However, if their second attempt doesn’t adequately move us, rather than applauding the actor’s courage to present themselves to the world once more, most of us are quick to mumble under our breaths that “they should have quit while they were ahead”. On the other hand, when someone does decide to call it quits while they’re at the top of their game, we tend to condemn them for hoarding their talent, and refusing to share it with the rest of the world.



The sign near my house.



By no means am I innocent in this case. I find myself criticizing accomplished individuals on a regular basis for either producing something of a quality I consider to be below them, or for not producing enough product altogether. For example, there is a business near my house with a marquee-style sign along the roadside. Every week they display a different message; usually witty proverbs that make me chuckle. For instance, one week the sign read, “where there’s a will…there are 157 family members”, or another week it read, “teenagers are hard to raise…especially in the morning”. I always look forward to driving past this business on Monday morning to see what they’ve come up with for their sign***. Last week, prior to the long weekend, I found myself a little disappointed with their sign posting, for what I considered to be a lack of creativity. The sign read “have a safe Civic Holiday weekend”. Why was I being so unappreciative? Rather than condemn this business for failing to make me laugh on my way to and from work for one week, why wasn’t I cutting them some slack, and thanking them for all of the other weeks that they had added some humour to my daily commute, at no cost to me?

A quote by Eli Khamarov**** explains why our first experience with something is often the best. He says, “The best things in life are unexpected – because there were no expectations”.

*I haven’t read the Charles Dickens book, but it’s on my personal reading list.....but don't expect me to get around to reading it right away!

** Jesus’ praises really are sung by followers around the world, especially on Sunday mornings.

***Okay, they probably don’t come up with what they put on their sign. I’m guessing they get their content from the internet….or am I being cynical and not giving enough credit?

****I have no idea who Eli Khamarov is. I just Googled “expectation quotes”. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on the sign people ˆ.

The Cable Remuneration Assistance Program

Why not add access to cable television to the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights? Photo by Winnond.

I was going to blog this week complaining about the ridiculous amount of coverage the CBC is giving to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s tour of Canada, but I realized that doing so would be a little hypocritical. I can’t wait until they’re gone. Instead, I’ll share a slightly humourous, but mostly sad and pathetic personal anecdote.

The other day I was walking down the street, and I passed the local welfare office. There were a couple of seedy looking characters* sitting in front of the office having a smoke; a guy and a girl, who looked to be in their early twenties. That’s not the funny part. The funny part is the snippet of a conversation that I heard them having. It went like this:

Seedy Girl: So, who cares if you don’t have hot water? At least you have cable. I don’t have cable. I’d rather have cable than hot water.

Seedy Guy**: True dat.

So it looks like this guy is using his welfare money to pay his cable bill, but not his water bill. You know, I’m always trying to tell people how important the welfare system is, but they’re always saying, “Things like hot water and food aren’t essential parts of life, Dean”. How their tune would change if they only knew that without his welfare cheque, my friend, the seedy guy, would have missed last week’s episode of Glee. Oh, the horror!

I propose that a new government agency be created to ensure that all Canadians have access to digital cable, so that no one will have to choose between hot water and Hot in Cleveland, food and the Food Network or paying their rent and watching Rent on pay per view. The new bureau could be called the Cable Remuneration Assistance Program, or CRAP for short.

*Not that everyone who collects welfare is seedy. There are also many seedy people who don’t collect welfare.

**He was wearing no shirt, and his visible underwear to pant ratio was about 1:1.