asakiyume | (Reply)

From:

I read a book recently called Ashes to Admin, which is a memoir by an anonymous writer who spent many years administrating Public Health Act funerals. I don't know if you have them where you are? They're "pauper's" funerals, administered by local councils for people who have no one - no family, no friends and relations - to arrange for what happens to them after the die. What she says in the first chapter and every chapter after is this: I know what you're imagining, but no one has no one. The alcoholic homeless guy has the guys at the hostel where he used to stay, worrying about what happened to him. The guy who really had no family, never married, outlived everyone, was sent on his way by the town's model railway society who'd loved having him as a member. A family member comes despite a long estrangement. The woman whose body was washed up, with no name; the town left presents on her grave.

And you know, that's one set of stories from one place at one time, and I feel like we are always predicting the tearing apart of the fabric of society; but it will take time to convince me that we "spectate" on other people's social relationships in place of our own. I'm also not really convinced that sport and theatre are things I should want to do, rather than spectate; acting and playing sport are completely different activities from watching plays and watching sports, not to mention the fact they do need spectators!