Real Death

Death is not really an unusual thing, but people only seem to acknowledge it when it happens to famous and well known people. The past two years have been rather "fatal" to many well known people. We have lost Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Brittany Murphy,Natasha Richardson, Patrick Swayze and more recently, we have lost Dennis Hopper and Gary Coleman.

And of course like many people around the world i felt saddened to hear such news. But after a few moments i got upset with myself because people, adults and children alike die all over the world, but their deaths aren't so natural. Their death is due to famine, war and other unnecessary and preventable causes. I was upset with myself for perhaps 'honoring', for the lack of a better word, the deaths of some while brushing off the deaths of others. And yes i tried to rationalize it. I told myself that as a viewer i have come to be attached to some "celebrities" in the sense that i identify with them because of certain roles they play. But then i realized that my rationalization is totally B.S. because first of all these actors are "playing" some "role" and second of all, don't all these people in Iraq or the people in Africa have anything in common with me for me to identify with them over? After all, we are all human and humane. So whatever i have in common with those people in Africa and Iraq is still more solid than what i have in common with a mere created "role", regardless of how realistic and plausible it may be.

So, I just wonder have we as humans killed our humane nature? Yes, of course death is real regardless if you are an actor or an African orphan. And of course the death of either is a loss. But i really don't think we should place more attention on the death of a celebrity than on the death of an unknown and perhaps unfortunate person. And no, just because there is a lot of news about the rising death toll of the people in Iraq or Afghanistan does not give us the right to be numbed and thus, more accustomed to it.