A European football club announced the death of one of its past players, Luiz Suarez. Some people who didn’t read the club’s full statement mistakenly believed that a different, iconic player with the same name had passed away. Those in the comments started rebuking his death. When it was eventually clarified, they quickly changed their tune and expressed relief using phrases like “Better”, “Thank God”, and “I was afraid.” That piqued something deep in me because death, as I know, is a meal that will be tasted by everyone. When does someone deserve to die and someone else doesn’t? I understand that we share deep connections with some people but the death of any human at all should pull something deep inside us.
Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher, eloquently noted that “Death is the great leveller; all distinctions that have existed among men in their lifetime vanish at once.” In the face of mortality, we are all equal, regardless of our accomplishments or the adoration we have received. But when we hear about someone’s death, our emotions and reactions are shaped by how we perceive that person. The situation with the football player’s mistaken identity shows this clearly. People quickly rejected the news of their favourite’s death because they didn’t want it to happen. However, when they found out it was a different person who had died, they changed their tune. We tend to value some lives more than others.
Our reactions to death are influenced by the connections we have with the deceased, I understand. We form emotional bonds with people who touch our lives, people who bring us joy or inspire us with a sense of purpose. The bond becomes so tight that we feel a deep sense of loss when they pass. But this bond makes us overlook the equal value of every human life and the universality of death.
Sometimes when someone dies, you hear people say, “It shouldn’t have been him.” And I am always confronted with questions like: “Who should it be then? Me? You? Someone else? Who doesn’t deserve to live a full life? Who doesn’t deserve to sleep at night and wake up the following day?”
I have to admit that I too am guilty of this. When I scroll through social media and come across news of someone’s passing whom I don’t know, I don’t react much because I don’t have any personal connection to them. However, I’ve never stopped to think about this before. Before writing this, I asked myself, “Is someone’s life meaningless to me if I don’t have an emotional connection with them?”
And here’s my answer to myself: No, their life is not meaningless. They just don’t exist in my circle of connections; they could pass away without affecting me directly. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t feel sorry when I hear about their passing, because their life is just as important to their loved ones as the life of someone I am emotionally connected to.
I think we should take a moment to briefly reflect and recognise the equal value of every human life. Whether our lives intersect or not, the passing of any individual should evoke within us a sense of empathy, reminding us of the fragile yet sacred nature of our shared humanity. Life is fickle and can abruptly end at any time, so we should be empathetic when we hear that someone has passed away. We shouldn’t say words like “it shouldn’t have been you” because who should it be? Whether we like it or not, we shall all pass at a time we don’t even know.
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