Annnnnd. That was interesting.
I'm not even going to get into the movie because what really got to me was the fact he was so narcoleptic that it was a true tragedy just letting him be alive. His character was given all the crap in life without the self-awareness that could have made it make any sense. I would have been relieved if they killed him off in the end .. like Old Yeller.
Burn Sanderson: You can't hardly tell at first, not till they get to the point of slobbering and staggering around. When you see a critter in that fix, you know for sure. But you want to watch for others that ain't that far along. Now, you take a bobcat or a fox. You know they'll run if you give 'em the chance. But when one don't run, or maybe makes fight at you, why, you shoot him and shoot him quick. After he's bitten you, it's too late.
I saw a whole documentary last month or so on the rehabilitation of seals in California, and one of the saddest cases for me was this really young happy seal pup had these insanely large tumors all over in its mouth just hanging out there like tentacles and being painful. They x-rayed it and saw there was no way of removing them without also removing its jaw. Doing that means it would never be able to survive in the wild which defeats the purpose, as they are not pets. It was just a genetic freak occurrence and the best thing they could do for it is euthanize the animal.
Side note: Andre was not a good lesson to kids about what pets are.
My question is why are we not allowed to feel that way about people? I just said I wished a character in a movie died and half of everyone reading this probably said "wow that's pretty harsh, why would you even say that!" as if it were a real living person. I know nothing can redeem the human spirit like numerous opportunities to fuck everything up in their lives.. but laying like a vegetable with no brain activity, or sitting in a hospital just waiting it out in pain to kick the bucket 'when God thinks its appropriate for you' just doesn't make much sense to me. I've been in situations personally where I have tried to make it make sense, said this person will be FINE because I'd like them to be fine and they're breathing and stuff, but it never happened. It never made sense. I am just saying, why can't someone feel that way and not be a bad person? Why can't we talk about that. I know the animal world is much different, people have decided they are allowed to make those decisions, but those seals were euthanize with compassion from people who love and devote their lives to save so very few of them. When it comes to people, I feel like its mostly about the fact nobody wants to take ownership of their own opinion on that topic.
Nobody wants to be the one to say, ya, killing people is a good idea. Nobody wants to be the one to say, I am totally behind you killing that person. I'd just like to know why it's not allowed when they see a person suffering, to at least not go through all kinds of crazy crap to keep them alive.
One of the only memories of my "real" dad was how he was cleaning out his shed and a mouse got injured so he went and killed him with a shovel. My mother is the complete opposite and I was always told we could save any animal by turning the house into some little animal hospital because there is no bigger tragedy in LIFE than something dying. The lesson: nothing should ever die. Got that? In retrospect my dad probably should have explained why he was killing the mouse beforehand (since I was under the impression we could fashion a little mouse cast or give it physiotherapy so it could walk on 3 legs) but it is a child who thinks everyone can be made better, everyone can change, everything in life is OK and we don't ever need to experience tragedy because if we don't want it to happen then it won't. It should be that way of course, we don't want a bunch of depressed kids, but let me just tell you the alternative is my mother running around like Dr Quinn Medicine Woman and let a bat die in a coffee can in the fridge because she thought it would like the cold.
Just opening up the conversation here.
As a note, one of the experiences I get to share in return for My Own Private Idaho: showing Sean eating berries off the tree in the backyard won't immediately kill you. You should have seen his face haha. MMM poison berries :)
