What precisely is being exploited here? As a species we talk about death a lot, and have since the dawn of our species I would imagine…
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Nondualism answers all of this by refusing to see “self” and “other” as separate, thus leading to a way of being that is both deeply empathic, but also valuing of the needs of the self, and doing what one can to keep these in balance and synchrony as best as possible. But I suppose nondualism didn’t ever really catch on very much here in the West…
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You’re assuming he ends up being permanently damaged by the experience. Death does NOT have to be this way at all, and for some people isn’t. I often tell people that one of the very greatest gifts my father ever gave me was dying when I was 3. From a very early age, I really was forced to interrogate the nature of mortality and existence, and I think I came out significantly stronger for it. I’m also not at all 100% convinced of a purely materialistic view of reality, in fact I’m quite convinced of the opposite, so again, death just doesn’t hit me like it does others. shrug I don’t assume everyone has this relationship with mortality, but I do like to remind folks once in a while that it is an achievable state of being. Not to say we don’t all have our physical existence freakouts once in a while, but it is quite the outlier experience…
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…and now, with this last gut-wrenching, heart-ripping story, 2016 can come to a close early. that’s enough for one year.
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Well that must really suck.
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God bless you, Santa. These’s a very special place waiting for you too.
All right. That’s it. Now I’m crying.
I’m glad the child had something like this at the end.
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Hear, hear. It’s often all we can do for others (or at all). I notice that most folks (myself included), at least in America, don’t know how to do it either. I struggle with the helplessness.
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“If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.”
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No I’m not. I am assuming that he’s taken on an enormous burden under terribly unfair circumstances. Maybe he comes out OK, maybe he doesn’t. But either way his sacrifice is way out of proportion to what he signed up for.
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I suspect you are right, and what appears to be an unsympathetic take on this story is actually unbearable empathy.
With so much uncertainty in the world a story that can really make you feel is like a shot of morphine, it can take the world away for a little while. But I understand it could have acutely, painfully the opposite effect.
I wish the child had died in his mother’s arms.
The whole thing is fucking depressing.
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The thing is, the nondualism I was referring to is a literal belief that there is no separation between the self and the other. I didn’t get the sense your comment was coming from that perspective. In mine, it was. 
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Sorry about your father.
I am in a similar boat. I probably don’t deal with death correctly, per se, but it doesn’t seem to affect me like it does others. It isn’t that there isn’t a loss, but I guess I reach acceptance faster. I lost a childhood playmate to leukemia when I was young. And also the neighbor lady who was like a grandma died of cancer. And I remember following the Bubble Boy on the news. OH, and Mr Hooper. My dad also fished a lot, and hunted, so I knew where food comes from. I think this early exposure maybe tempered me differently. Or maybe my EQ is just lower than average, I dunno.
Though I haven’t yet lost a parent, sibling, or child, which would probably affect me differently.
And while this kids passing is tragic, let’s just thank our stars these stories now ARE tragic. A bit over 100 years ago it was just a sad fact of life, and you were expected to have more than one of your kids not reach adulthood.
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I’ve “liked” enough of your posts to know something heavy must be going in your life right now.
You have my best wishes, and a listening “ear” if you wish to PM me. (Not that I’m a professional anything, but maybe that’s actually better?)
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I think it’s reasonable to say that, willy-nilly, we have all signed up for something like that, one way or another, at some point or many, in our lives…
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so much hate. Why?
What might be confusing about this sort of Christmas story, is that we expect all Christmas stories to have happy endings. Christmas is that ‘special’ time of year when everyone is supposed to be Jolly or Merry , or Happy… and this one is none of the above. The other kind of Christmas story is the dark, sarcastic, nihilistic story of that special time of year when we are reminded that we don’t really know the people we’re buying gifts for, not really well enough to get them something we know they’ll like. And this isn’t that kind of story either. But it’s a really good Christmas story for all of that.
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In a way, you sign up for it just by stepping out of the door. Just about every day somewhere on this planet one stranger saves another’s life, or one comforts another at the moment of death. It doesn’t make it any easier or fairer, but life mostly isn’t.
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