The English language has an unfortunate term reserved for breaking ties and resolving athletic competitions called "sudden death," usually meaning that the next point or the next event in a game will decide the outcome of the game, thus one team will experience "sudden death" or at least "sudden loss" and the game will be immediately over. The term really should be changed to "sudden loss" or "sudden victory" or "immediate decision" or something catchy like "the Bobby rule," anything but what it's called now.
The reason being that it becomes intertwined or confused with something like Kobe Bryant's unexpected and sudden death occurs like today, one of the saddest days in sports history I've ever been a part of. Kobe Bryant was a hero of my generation, and I always remember growing up watching him and him being a part of my life all the time, from him debuting in 1996 (I was just 9 years old) and retiring less than 4 years ago! in 2016. My sister was born in 1996, so Kobe's been a part of my life as long as my sister has. It's obviously terrible that people have to die (and it's even sadder that Kobe's 13-year-old daughter also died, as well as 3 others on the helicopter with them) but dying in such a sudden and shocking and unexpected way is really one of the worst one to go. No chance to say goodbye to one's family, no change to brace for it, to achieve some sort of closure, to put all one's affairs in order. It's probably one of the worst parts of death: not knowing (for the most part) when it's going to come. If someone told me when the exact date I was going to die, I wouldn't necessarily be happy with it, I would try to negotiate for a little longer time, but ultimately after a while I'd probably come to terms with it, and even be able to plan for it.......how much money I could spend, how I spend the rest of my time, etc. Kobe and the others on the plane were not able to experience that at all, and he had a lot of good to do for the world. Which is why I don't agree with the term "if it's your time, it's your time." People say that to indicate a lack of control, that one has to accept one's fate, but it kind of diminishes how terrible a sudden and unexpected death is, in my opinion. It really wasn't Kobe's daughter (just 13 years old) time to die, so she really should not have died. I know it's a religious thing to say "God has a plan," not really trying to offend anyone with religious beliefs if I misunderstood that quote, but how can it be a plan to have the people who died so unexpectedly? It seems cruel and unusual to me, so I chalk incidents like this up to some cruel and unfortunate twist of fate. Something went wrong.
The coronavirus that originated from Wuhan, China is another twist of fate that does damage to our worldview: global epidemics that cause pain and suffering around the world, with 4 cases now in the U.S., and many deaths in China. Humans have so much to worry about already in terms of threats to their safety like car accidents, natural disasters, criminals, depression, suicidal thoughts (themselves), drug addiction, it seems cruel to add another to that list: a virus that isn't as deadly as SARS or Ebola but more contagious and passes easily from one human to another, which is particularly dangerous in a congested country like China with the largest population in the world. Ironically, the virus is reported to have originated from someone in China eating raw bats which carried the disease, which is exactly the premise of the movie "Contagion" about a world-wide epidemic.
Enough with sudden death! I support sudden life! (have people come back to life- not in a zombie way) in unexpected but completely magical ways!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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