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.

*

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.

Just looking away...

Just when you think that you've had all the epiphanies in life you could possibly have, another one pops up when you least expect it!

Now I have had many epiphanies (most of which haven't made it to this blog yet, but do stay tuned...) that have defined the way I think about life and have had a direct result in adjustments to my thinking, on how I lead my life and pick my life choices. And like all epiphanies, it's the simple ones, particularly those so subtle that you don't get it the first time, that eventually make the most impact.

I was at restaurant for lunch yesterday with my family (it was Mother's Day) and before the food had arrived my wife excused herself to go to the facilities – to ostensibly powder her nose (although her nose did NOT seem much powdered when she came back). Anyway, she came back and shared a non-information, as married couples often tend to do when they get back from the loo (or is it just us? Any way perhaps couples do this to convince themselves that the trip to the toilet was a worthy distraction above and beyond the nature call). The bit of information she shared, you should understand, had no relevance whatsoever to our lives except that it revealed the toilet habits of complete strangers.


In this case, it was the public toilet habit of NOT one but TWO women.

Apparently these women had even passed our table as they proceeded to theirs (my wife was behind them as they left the loo). As she sat down she immediately asked whether I had seen the women who had just passed – I said I had; I hadn't. To be perfectly honest, truth is I 'noticed' two people, who incidentally were probably women, pass, I did not 'see' them.

Then she continued to inform me that those two women do NOT close the door when they 'go' in a public toilet cubicle! I simply said, “just don't look” - what could I say as a follow-on to that revelation?

Immediately after I said it though, I realised that this was an epiphany staring me right in the face. Obviously this was beyond just toilet observation, but simply that people are entitled to their privacy and it is other's people's responsibility to respect that even when it seems the former has done nothing overtly to protect it.

Just because someone stands naked, doesn't mean that we have an obligation to look – it's a case of a transference of modesty. After all, just because YOU choose to have none (and this is relative) does not equate to me losing mine as a result. Now I fully understand that this might not stand as far as actual 'nudity' is concerned – if someone stands naked in front of me or around me in the general vicinity, I imagine I have an 'obligation' if not a duty to look, if only to confirm that the person is... well, naked!

If we can just get our mind out of the toilet, both meta-physically and metaphorically, this truth, that all people are entitled to their privacy and others have a responsibility to respect that even when the former do nothing overtly to protect it, stands ripe for almost everything we can imagine. It is imperative that as evolved species we must be able to “just look away.” Somehow we have this inane reasoning to rationalise that our approval is needed for other people's actions to be acceptable. Incredibly we inadvertently deem ourselves individually as the judge and jury of public social behaviour.

I can understand if the deemed 'offensive' actions interfere with the liberties or the space of people who do not wish to compromise those rights, but why are we compelled to feel that we have a 'say' when the actions do not affect us at all? For example, in the case of the actions of two women witnessed by my wife, I am sure it was not their intension to 'expose' themselves to the other patrons (after all they were in a cubicle, and if they wanted to do that they might have tried the men's), but probably thought enough of the patrons to imagine that those patrons could look away. Some, I am sure, did but were shocked, while other simply could not.

You rarely have this sort of problem in the men's room (unless you happen to a woman in the men's room, and then its probably still the man who makes a hurried retreat!). A hard and fast rule is that men do NOT 'look' at other men when they 'go' – but then leaving the door open is NOT an option either.

Clearly just because they appeared not to do anything overt to protect their privacy, did not give anyone else the right to disregard it. There is no argument that the onus falls on the person entering a room to knock BEFORE opening a closed door.

Ditto for everything else. Just look away.

Bad Mother's Day prelude

Hot on the heels of 'Mother's Day' is a story that I discovered on the net. If you've already read it then you know how some people assume they are the centre of the universe.

The story is real.

A 19 year old south Florida man pushed his mother in anger because she drank his Starbucks iced coffee that he put in her refrigerator. As the NBC Miami story "the spat started when Quintana's 43-year-old mom woke up from a nap with a parched throat. She saw her son's Starbucks in the refrigerator and probably thought it was safe to drink."

Getty Images
(taken from original news item on nbcmiami.com)

Obviously it wasn't. In his fit of rage at his mother's utter disrespect for his property and for what in his mind "amounted to stealing," he pushed her down. You can be sure that the police did not quite see it his way and he was arrested and charged with battery.

I understand a lot of mothers dote on their children a bit too much. I can even see how this might instil in the child's mind the belief that the mother lives only to serve the child and his interests, but obviously the child is kidding himself when he continues to believe this as a man.

Moral of the story: Drink tea. The other thing is dote on, NOT devote yourself to, your children - they may be the apple of your eye, but you don't want to pay nurture to any rot at the core.

POST SCRIPT: A friend sent in another development across the world that sours the very milk in the Mother's Day spirit: "Just yesterday, Mother's Day to boot, a Bangladeshi lawyer stabbed his mother to death and then went on to the police station, surrendered and lead the cops to the body. Apparently he didn't care much for her cooking." 
Thanks to Nazim Farhan Choudhury.  

To all mothers... good tidings

There are hundreds of sweet sweet sentimentalities on Mother's Day you could find on the internet, but the most poignant one I had ever come across was also the one that communicated the simplest ideas because it defines what a mother is - and what a father can never truly be...

"A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."

The words by Tenneva Jordon in my mind simply defines a mother - because it defines my mother for me... and to be honest, your mother for you. Mother's Day is but one day, but a mother's day is probably every single day because she wilfully dedicates each moment to her child. I see this in my mother, i see this in my children's mother... everyday is built around those she cares most about.

Even as a doting father who would give my all for my children, I will be the first to admit that often times I have other pressing priorities (which I, more often than not, reluctantly relegate to second place for the sake of my children). I suspect that no mother harbours such reluctances - and it is this self-sacrifice and ne'er a thought attitude that makes mothers the best!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers that I know, and to all the mothers that I love... I am because you are.

Following is a poem i discovered on the web. Unfortunately no author is attributed to it, but I think it says what we all mean on this day.

Before I Was Myself, You Made Me, Me



Before I was myself you made me, me
With love and patience, discipline and tears,

Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Allowing me to sail upon my sea,
Though well within the headlands of your fears.
Before I was myself you made me, me

With dreams enough of what I was to be

And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,


Relinquishing your powers gradually
To let me shape myself among my peers.
Before I was myself you made me, me,

And being good and wise, you gracefully
As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears
Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.

For love inspires learning naturally:
The mind assents to what the heart reveres.

And so it was through love you made me, me
By slowly stepping back to set me free.

Why so serious?

Not only am I not an child, I was not the first born. A circumstance that makes for both a (often times) easy and (mostly) troubled coming of age under an older sibling – especially since my older sibling had a penchant to mete out grossities (it should be a word!) the likes of which most people (other than possibly other first borns) could never imagine.

This is not to say that I was tormented, far from it, most times I probably did not have to pay for “our” crimes. As a relative rule across all families, irrespective of national or socio-cultural backgrounds, the prime directive was that the older sibling “was supposed to know better” than to lead the “less experienced, trusting younger sibling who only follows an example.” (If this write-up was a film, now would be the perfect frame to dissolve into a close-up of innocent fluttering eyes... sigh.)

Anyway my brother and I had a fairly fun time growing up, apart from the times (which were quite frequent when we were younger) when he was the dominating fiend of Dickensian lore – the sinister Fagin shadow over my poor naïve Oliver Twist rendition (dissolve to close-up of my innocent fluttering eyes).

We were like the musketeers, always together as we were growing up, with what I was possibly hoodwinked to believe was a “all for one, one for all” mantra. Which really didn't work because even when I supposedly took the “heat,” the prime directive took precedence... at least that is how I will always remember it.

Except for one instance in particular.

The crime for which my very life was threatened by my mother (who incidentally swore she would beat me to my death; I was witness to so much high drama from a tender age) has been long forgotten to the point that it might not have even registered in the first place during all that chaos and cacophony.

Truth be told that I had no recollection of this incident, but the 'event' was, on occasion, brought up with joviality thanks to the yellow-bellied reproach of my brother – the head musketeer! My mother remembers with great mischief that my brother requested her to wait to mete out her corporal punishment upon innocent me (close-up of... you get the picture) until he had left the room!

That story was a favourite of my mother's (she saw it as proof as my brother's devotion to me... huh?). Over the years that story also served as the root of an epiphany and the birth of a Talatism truth. Humour saves lives, and, more importantly, deflects the seriousness of the moment.

I'd imagine that my mother's harden resolve softened somewhat at my brother's request – clearly he had indicated by his action (no matter how cowardly I deemed it) that while he fully believed that my mum could accomplish what she has set out to do, he made it abundantly clear that he did not want to be a witness to the snuffing of a fragile flame. That softening of the resolve may be reason why I do not remember the incident – I am almost sure that an event such as a “beating to death” would be quite vividly etched into my psyche had it actually happened.

So there you have it. Humour puts most things into perspective – no thing (sic) is important or serious enough in life not to be able to see a lighter side. As I had discovered quite early that you shouldn't sweat the small stuff and that given the right perspective everything is small stuff. I suddenly realised that humour was the tool that helped put everything in the “right perspective.” Everything is worth a chuckle, lest we take things too seriously.

As for the memories of my formative years under the influence my domineering older sibling... we really did become like the musketeers and I have no doubt that it is “all for one and one for all” this time around.