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Human life

I saw in the italian news today, that a guy came home one day having a bad day. He proceeded to slaughter his ex-wife, his little girl, his mother-in-law and his handicapped brother, then burn the house and jump off the window finally killing himself. How fucking awesome is that ? Besides the tragedy of course.

Translated italian news source

When my father died, I had a pretty rough time wondering what the hell makes the death of someone, a tragedy. Because I think death is nothing more than ceasing to be aware of self. Like a deep sleep where you don't think about anything. And the process of death is painless and quick. The body trying to maintain consciousness alive is the real pain, and it is when the body actually suffers, because it is being aware of what is going on : intellectually or physically : like for instance when the guy entered depressed / pissed off as hell, and in a very swift act he cut the throat of his ex-wife, he realized what he did, seeing her bleeding and struggling not to die as she realizes what is going on. That is when she is hurt because her flesh was sliced, and "hurt" intellectually if you will, because she realizes she is going to die, and struggles. But when the brain finally stops working, it receives no more input, it feels no more pain, but it doesn't work anymore either. Her consciousness just stops. It's that simple.

So my question is still up : What is the actual tragedy about that woman's death for instance ? Is it her experiencing pain before dying ? Well that just happened for a short duration, and it doesn't matter because she died in the end. Is it the idea that her dreams, her memories, her knowledge, her feelings, everything that she gathered up to this point, has come to an end, and she lost everything ? If that's the case, why does the death of a little girl, is somehow MORE of a tragedy ? She is younger, she didn't lose much, (experiences, memories, knowledge, etc.) all she lost was a potential that was unknown and full of uncertainties. Like Hitler's potential as a young boy that we now look at like the potential of a monster. Also, if we go even lower on the age meeter, we see that a fetus has no actual working brain therefore no memories, no sense of self, nothing. It just lives, like a flower. So it's very obvious that it's no tragedy killing it. At least it's not for me. But it's brain develops in a slow transition. So is there an actual point in his development where he starts to qualify as a human being ? What about an old dude, that is blind, deaf, mute, with no sense of smell, brain damage (that makes it impossible for him to recover his memories) and who is being kept alive by medical science ? Does he still qualify as a human being ? Based on what ? What he accomplished so far ? Even if that past self is now just like an empty shell ?

In the end, I still need to think more about this matter.

1 comment:

  1. Its a tragedy cause no one saw it coming, and people like to know in advance if someones gonna kill people.

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