A minute's silence, a moment of contemplation, respect for the departed...we've gone through this. Almost all of us. Maybe it was a national hero or leader's passing away, maybe it was a celebrity or someone.... I'm sure we're all been asked to bow our heads down and take a minute or so to think about...what exactly?
At the last international orientation volunteers' meeting we were asked to have a moment of silence for the departed. What is this moment of silence for? The first thought I had was of course of how they passed away. It was a tragedy that they did, but if it was to be a moment of silent respect..then I didn't have any. The driver was drunk and he got two of his friends killed. No...no respect there. But I didn't know any of them and it may be a little harsh on my part. Whatever...after this extremely brief period, I started thinking if I'd ever done anything stupid like that. I didn't. If I feel like I've had half a drink too many, no driving. I guess the correct and right thing to do is not have a single drink when you're going to drive. After spending three seconds on that, I moved on to other distractions. Looking sneakily around, wondering what other folk are thinking, thinking about what exactly you ought to think about? Is there a point to this?
Moments of silent respect - I had these when my grandfather passed away. I think I respected him more than any one I've ever known. But losing someone very close to you don't end with a moment of contemplation; they're normally long periods of mourning and remembrance.
Thinking back to all the times where I've been asked to silently contemplate....I cannot remember even a single time where I wasn't distracted in about two seconds. Its awkward; most of the time you didn't know the person well enough to think about them. The moments after are even more awkward I think - people looking around each other wondering if someone caught them staring at their bellies or looking around wondering which one wasn't paying their due "respects".
I don't know....what do you think when you're contemplating such things?
Interesting post. But you seem to have focused more on the person who drank, and not on the ones who passed away. One of them was my classmate - Cheema. He usually came to me during exams with doubts and I would help him out. A quick learner and a child at heart. He has a wonderful Punjabi accent. He didn't care for studies, he was here for fun, and he made that clear. In that minute, I thought about how those moments of fun cost him his life. nothing more.
ReplyDeleteYou're right ofcourse. In that minute, I was also thinking of the absolute waste of two lives. You have to live and learn...and the driver will learn.
ReplyDeletePlease stop blogging. You're rubbish!
ReplyDeleteI feel that in that minute of silence, we should think not of the dead, but of death, which is going to come to each and every one of us.
ReplyDeleteThinking of this, makes all life so precious and important esp those whom you care for , so keep telling them that you care and love them.
Si ub that minute's silence respect the dead as well as all those who are important to you
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http://brianford.newsvine.com/_news/
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http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/
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