Article: 261669 of talk.bizarre
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
From: kludge@netcom.com (Scott Dorsey)
Subject: Re: Day Without Art
Message-ID: <kludgeDIzG3G.9BG@netcom.com>
Organization: Institute for Boatanchor Studies
References: <49nbga$34fu@lamar.ColoState.EDU>
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 1995 23:33:16 GMT
Lines: 59
Sender: kludge@netcom14.netcom.com
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In article <49nbga$34fu@lamar.ColoState.EDU> jenine@lamar.ColoState.EDU (just.jenine abarbanel) writes:
> 
>plan a was, frankly, dying in a nuclear war.  no, 
>really.  i would have nightmares on a regular basis.  
>i honestly believed a very likely outcome of the 
>reagan years would be nuclear holocaust.  

This is interesting, because I sort of grew up as part of the cold war.
My father was in the military and grew up on military bases, many 
outside the country, with a lot of grim-faced people who took the threat
of imminent bombardment very seriously.  I remember having air raid 
drills in kindergarten, patiently waiting under my desk until the
"all-clear" whistle blew.

It seems most people of my generation didn't get this kind of experience.
I told a group of friends about the time my aunt was visiting us, and 
a tank rolled by the street outside.  My aunt awakened my father at
about six in the morning, to inform him that there was a tank going by.
"What color is the star on the side?" my father asked.  My aunt went to
the window, and announced ashenly that the star was white.  "It's okay,
then" my father replied, "go back to sleep."   Most of the people did
not find a bit of humor in that.  I think a lot of my sense of what is
funny came out of the black humor born of the sense of imminent doom,
and I don't seem to share that with much of the population.

>well, i got over that and revised my life plans.
>plan b hasn't changed.  but plan a has.  i now realize
>i am unlikely to die in the mushroom cloud's glow.
>now a new spectre looms overhead.  i find it
>very probable that i will, someday, die of aids.

AIDS is different, because you _can_ do a pretty good job of protecting
yourself completely against it.  If I die of AIDS (and the chances are,
statistically speaking, pretty damn high that I will), it will be my own
fault.  This strikes me as much more honorable than being killed by the
finger twitch of some bozo in Washington or Moscow.  On top of that, the
death by AIDS is slow enough that you know that it's taking place, and
that gives you time to set things in order.  I have more a terror of
dying and leaving behind too many unfinished projects with no directions
on completing them, than I have of actually dying.  

You know, death doesn't disturb me all that much.  It's uncertain and
confusing, but then so is life.  But sudden death that I have no control
over is something that I do find very disturbing.

Will it be a terrible shame?  I don't know, I suppose it has to happen
someday.  The deaths of others are, but somehow I can't thin kof my own as
being more than unfortunate.

>let's all take a minute today, put away the beauty 
>and joy of FTSD, and think a bit.  think about all those
>who have already died.  those we've known, and the 
>strangers, too.  and let's think about compassion and
>respect.  and love.  peace.

Thank you.  I don't think I could have said it as well.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."