"Death is all around us." "People die every day." - These are just some of the quotes that are popular in culture but also reflect a startling truth: we're all surrounded by death all the time, so much so that I for one have been desensitized by it. It's estimated that by the time a child is 10 years ago, they see "x" number of deaths on screen already. I heard this statistic a long time ago and forgot the number but whatever it is, it's alarming: so many TV shows, movies, video games, and even the news show death so commonly, as if it's a commonplace thing in life. In reality, though, I only hear about deaths, whether it's a former law professor who passed away, or a famous celebrity, or a group of people who suffered from the same disease. The only people I've seen who passed away in front of me (or passed away almost right before I got there) was a guy on the dodgeball court in 2013 from a pre-existing condition, not dodgeball, and my grandfather who just passed away last month. In reality, death is such a more complicated thing to deal with than just hearing about something on the news, having a brief "oh that's sad, that's too bad" moment and then moving on. I've had very little experience having a loved one passed away, but now that I've gone through it I've realized it takes a lot of time to process, that even though humans naturally designed to adapt quickly to situations including the feeling of losing, I'm still trying to adapt to a death in the family, especially if it's sudden and unexepected. I'm starting to understand what the phrase "sorry for your loss" means, not just a pithy expression to try to cheer a grieving relative up or just the standard thing to say, but that loss is so important in one's life and signifies a large chunk in a life that just won't be there anymore forever, and won't be replaced ever again.
The recent Netflix phenomenon "Squid Game," the number 1 show in 90 different countries, personifies the cheap violence that we're all subjected to nowadays. It's a good show, for sure, but it definitely uses the shock value of many, many deaths to its advantage, in a callous way of equating other people's lives as just dollar values, where each death increases the grand total prize that the winner of the Squid Game can obtain if he/she wins. The series even alludes to this bloodthirsty tendency by introducing characters who are "viewers" of the Squid Game to mirror us viewers who are watching from our couches through Netflix, seeing other people die as entertainment.
A similar thing is going on with the news, with so much media attention paid to deaths and murders, including the Gabby Petito homicide (likely killed by her boyfriend Brian Laundrie, who is the subject of an ongoing manhunt) Covid deaths, and the body count in Afghanistan since the U.S.'s pullout, various other wars going on in other countries. Death is the most significant event in anyone's life, but when reporting on the deaths of vast quantities of death, it becomes overwhelming and less impactful, like a statistic that we have to measure against other days, like "only 9 people died today," and it all becomes difficult to accept, to even understand the concept of death. If so many people are dying every day, what is going in the world? It's hard to grasp, but I try not to think about it too much and continue living on with my own life while I can, and cherish those around me who are still living so as to put off death as long as possible.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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