Death defies design? Duh!

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There are probably more people alive today than have died since the beginning of time. Since there were no official counts, I just had to make that up.

But before you discard the aforementioned statement as completely inane consider the fact that in 1350 there were a mere 300 million people in the world, today that figure is about 6.92 billion. According to the US Census Bureau it is estimated that 140 million babies are born each year while 57 million people die in that same time.

The same authority presents that while global population growth will probably stabilise at this figure, i.e. 140 million per annum, it predicts the number of deaths per year will rise to rise to about 80 million per annum (who does these morbid studies? But more importantly, what does the USCB know that we don't?).

The fact that we have more people above the ground than below it is a comfort, but by extension of that fact one day all these people (save those who decide to waft around in the wind as ash) will have to find unoccupied burial ground.

This does not bode well particularly because 70% of the earth is water and possibly 33% of the land left is hard rock, coupled with the fact that already a billion or so people have died since time immemorial, this leaves (in my random guess, to the 4th decimal) about 2.3127% of land globally that has not been used to bury someone!

And hot on the heels of this realisation...

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Scanning through the newspapers yesterday, I was flabbergasted to see a short news item, based on a report from 'Beeld' newspaper (an Afrikaans language daily), that cautioned the people in Wolwefontein, a quaint railway village in the Karoo heartland of South Africa, that residents would have to give a month's notice before they died.

Otherwise their surviving kin would be hard pressed (quite literally, it appears) to find a suitable grave to bury them.

The month's notice was because “that is how long it takes to bore through the local cemetery's hard stone stratum” - which is hit just barely half metre in the ground.

Image from original story on publiceyeonline

In real estate they talk about “location, location, location,” as the three most important criteria to look out for. You'd be certain that the location scout behind this location must have cashed that finder's cheque pronto as soon as he got his hands on it, save for the fact that the land in question had been donated to the town by a farming couple five years ago because the Wolwefontein didn't have a graveyard of it own.

Obviously no one can (or did) really serve notice before they passed on, so the municipality would bury its newly deceased in pre-prepared holes. The real problem started recently when Wolwefontein had been inducted into another municipality, a result of which the grave digging in the rocky outcrop had fallen desperately behind market demand.

And in the unfortunate case of one recent Wolwefontein deceased in particular all the pre-prepared holes were occupied and thus he had to be buried in a grave reserved for a matriarch of the small community who is 101.

The poor woman believes that she will be buried beside her husband, but now this strange man lies there in her stead; the townsfolk have thought it best not to tell her though.

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I don't know about you, but while there is no real humour in death it sure has one heck of a punchline!

[After thought: Things being the way they are, why worry about where you'll be buried when its all over? From my perspective it's never going to be MY headache, the most I can do is stay healthy and think positive; that way, postpone the headache for my kin as long as I can.]

Our opinions matter... mostly to ourselves

Speaking about the public toilet habits of total strangers (see previous day's post), a few days ago I came upon this amusing story in one of the daily vernaculars I read that talks a great deal about ego, and how far we fool ourselves in our self-worth.

I tried to look it up again to faithfully reproduce it here, but as these things go I can't find the newspaper I read it in. However, I am confident that I will come across it when I don't need it as I go back hunting in the stack of old papers to share some other dose of something that I read (which invariably I will fail to locate).

Anyway I will try to paraphrase from memory the incident that I read about.

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The location for the story was an airport and the gentleman in question was in transit, waiting to catch a connecting flight. At some point during the wait he (let's call him, Adam) had to use the washroom.

A few minutes after he entered the stall, shut the door and sat down to his business, he heard a fellow traveller get into the stall next to his.

Soon, he heard a voice from the next stall (was that also a knock?)... "Hi there, how you doing?"

Our man was flabbergasted! He could not imagine what he should do, after all how can one strike up a conversation with a complete stranger while in the stall? Not knowing exactly what he should do though, he decided to just reply and hope that was that.

“I'm good thanks,” Adam replied rather awkwardly (clearly he was not in his comfort zone).

Silence. Sigh of relief... thanks God.

Then... "So, what are you doing?" came the same voice from the next stall.

Now our man thought this a bit too much! What the heck did this guy think Adam was doing in the stall? Deciding not to raise what EXACTLY he was doing at the moment, he politely replied "Well, I'm waiting to catch in flight in an hour..."

“Great, great,” came the reply, “mind if I pop in?”

Now this was outrageous! Mind if he popped in? Of course Adam minded! Who was this pervert? Adam riled up his courage (after all this could some sort of psychopathic goon) and strongly replied “I don't think so!”

The voice in the stall kept quiet at that it seemed.

Good, thought Adam, with relief, then he heard the man say "Look I'll have to call you back. Every time I ask you a question, this jackass in the next stall keeps answering me."

*

Well there you have it, while the toilet habits of strangers CAN at times be unsettling... it is no more fantastical than our own estimation of our self-worth sometimes.

A Talatism truth is that not everything we see, or hear, or feel is necessarily relevant to our lives or solely for our consumption; even when it seems at first directed at us.

The runaway 'ego' must be reigned in to the fact that we are not always the subject of discussion and that everything does not beg for our commenting upon.

I have heard people say that “opinions are like a@!holes... everyone has one.” Expanding on that hard truth, we should remind ourselves that “just because we might have one, doesn't necessarily mean that we need to expose it.” It is a big mistake to always take all things in life (especially oneself) too seriously.

This post itself could be an example. Heh heh.