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This was supposed to be done for class and this was supposed to be much easier.
The assignment was to pick a death notice with no photo that stood out to you and draw the dead person as you imagine them from the description. I spent two hours wading through uniform "beloved husband, father and friend, died at 89" trying to find anything memorable. And then it finally occurred to me to look up police obituaries.
In half an hour I was practically crying but at least I had an idea for the picture.
Except this is where it got complicated. Because it's sad when people die, and then they are remembered. Only not quite.
Nobody remembers the offenders. People try to forget them. People say "best thing he ever did was getting shot". Nobody cares that a lot of them were people who were troubled and ignored, or made a mistake and couldn't fix it - it's much easier to pretend that they weren't human at all. But they were. i know some people do terrible things, and sometimes I say "oh, there's a special place in hell for people like that" when I hear about some atrocity but I find the idea of eternal hell ridiculous - what's the point in all that suffering if you never get a chance to become a better person? So really, I don't know where people go when they die and I don't know if remembering them matters but I feel uncomfortable that some people are erased.
Except when I decided to draw a picture for criminals as well I though that I drew people who do good things and people who do bad things, but what about people who don't get a chance to do much and are also not remembered? Who remembers people in institutions if they have no family? People staying for years in psychiatric hospitals? Children with issues that got abandoned and never got adopted and are just passed from an institution to an institution as they grow old? They don't get much during their lives and when they die does anyone even bother to write one of those cheesy obituaries? It already had nothing to do with my initial task but I wanted to do it.
Of course in a way it doesn't matter. It's much better to care about people who are alive and near you than to fuss about dead people you never met. But if it turns out that it matters in some way, at least I thought of this.
Oh, and the song. It's a good one.
For some reason this feels relevant to Cop Story? In a way Cop Story is also my way of remembering of people.
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Comments
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Woah these are really nicely done! :D
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Thank you! :)
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I love that song. And the gloominess and dreamlike look of the drawing goes well with that.
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Thank you! This is exactly what I was going for, though it's odd how with all its gloominess this song is one of the most comforting things I've heard in a while.
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Wow, that's one sad subject, but interresting anyway! You're still in school?
I love the piece, very morbid. The word a little hard to read, maybe -
but I find the idea of eternal hell ridiculous - what's the point in all that suffering if you never get a chance to become a better person?
Some people are just irredeemably evil, but it's very, very rarely the case. Your point is exactly the reason why I don't believe in hell or any of that junk. Human find themselves to be more important than they really are. We are unbelievably successful animals that dominate the planet, but we are still nothing more than animals.
Of course in a way it doesn't matter. It's much better to care about people who are alive and near you than to fuss about dead people you never met. But if it turns out that it matters in some way, at least I thought of this
It doesn't hurt to be aware of the world outside your bubble, but rarely is it a practical thing unless you deal with the world on a larger scale. It doesn't particularly matter. Life's not fair, and it never will be; I used to get upset by this fact, but I sort of numbed to the point where I stopped caring and started protecting my own interests. You're right though. It's better to focus on what we have while we have it, instead of spending time in the past or future. A lesson we could all be reminded of.
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I don't really believe in irredeemably evil people - I mean everyone starts out as toddlers, it's just that most people fuck up at some later point, and some fuck up in really terrible ways. But I don't think there's anyone who was evil from the start and would be in any kind of circumstances. But yeah, some people are monsters, of course.
And yup, it always seemed a little bizarre to me how the idea that human life is worth more than animal life is not only the most common way of thinking but also considered the only acceptable way of thinking. I mean if I see a dog and a child drowning and I save the dog first I'd be considered a monster and honestly I don't understand why (besides the purely biological need to put your own kind first but it has nothing to do with the concept of human morality).
And uh, I didn't mean being ignorant by "not fussing about dead people you've never met". I mean I've seen people who had a lot of sympathy for fictional characters or people they read about somewhere but treated people actually close to them like utter crap. And they considered themselves to be good, caring and compassionate but really were some of the worst people I've ever met.
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Well... let me posit this to you. Let's say someone wasn't given a "fair chance" and their brain never really developed all the way (say like cerebral palsy). They seem to have no idea of what's right or wrong, despite all the times they're told. Without the right context, their actions would seem reprehensible, but when spun in that light... does it really change anything? Not all toddlers get to develop the same or even start out the same, there's such variation. Some people just seem to be inherently kind, while others aren't; you can observe this in all sorts of children. Is it a product of their upbringing, of their time in the womb, or something deeper than that? I took a whole neuroscience course on child development, and there are so many competing theories and recorded examples of children doing the oddest things. Brains are insane.
The best part is the flipside, when some furries will go "animals are better than humans!" which always makes me laugh while I weep. The only thing other animals are better at is predictability in their behavior, something that seems very hard to do with humans. I have a very unpopular opinion in regards to philosophy and the value of a life, because I seem to value life equally regardless of how great or bad the person/animal is. The twist to that is, I don't seem to value life much in the grand scheme of things, despite my willingness to risk myself to save another human or other animal in an emergency. It's more complicated than I could ever really say in a comment box here, but all the other students wanted to just pine on about "well I'd totally save the more important person/being" without ever being able to actually justify it properly.
Ooh, sorry. I missed that. I haven't encountered that before, but that sounds awfully shitty.
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Yeah, I understand that life doesn't have much to do with fair chances. Just, uh, dunno how to phrase it, I don't believe in hell and don't approve of capital punishment while not being one of those people who paints all kinds of bastards as "poor misunderstood babies". It's sort of really complicated and I don't feel comfortable making certain judgements.
But yes, gosh, brains are insane! Didn't take any official courses (though mum has more books on all that than I feel comfortable to be around, hah) but I've read and seen enough to know it. And it's probably noticeable that most of my characters have some brain issues to some degree.
And oh, those furries, I don't know where to start on them. Animals can be heartless bastards - I'm not even mentioning all those hamsters and pigs eating their babies, all of our worst pack instincts like bullying the weakest and the most unusual come directly from our animal ancestors. People need to read more and think more.
I sort of get what you mean about value of life (and maybe think somewhat similarly) but it's really complicated and hard to talk about. But I guess it's good that we're trying. :)
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I'm still unsure about capital punishment... but I'm also very unsure of the current system of wasting resources to keep certain people alive, due to nothing but red tape. Then again you have the random person every now and then who is proven innocent, but it's quite rare/ Hell, nah though. I'm not going to worry about something that can't be proved. There's nothing wrong with having complex feelings on the subject! None of it is black and white. I brought up the example I did, though, because it's something I deal with in regards to my brother. The brain development just never fully happened, which almost seems tragic sometimes. Still, it doesn't absolve someone of their misdeeds.
Luckily I haven't run into any furries like that in a long time, they tend to stay on certain sites anyway. I could go on for a long time about how vicious Nature is, and I'm actually working with a lion character right now in trying to resolve some personal issues I have. I've always hated them for their special brand of viciousness, but the more jaded I get with life, the more I'm starting to admire them. It's kinda weird and hard to explain my entire reasoning, but yeah.
Hey, it's always good to test our thoughts and beliefs against one another. It either helps us see more, or strengthens our convictions.
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Yeah, I'm still not sure how to feel about that - someone getting punished for something they never got to fully understand. Cop Story is more or less about that but I never claim that any of things that happen are my idea of what should happen at all time so I don't know what it says about my opinion either. I hope things will work work out with your brother! I won't pry but it's something I have some idea of - I'm much better than I could be but my family says I'm somewhat stunted in development and they might have a point, considering that people my age usually have a relatively well-paying job and a family of their own, and I'm sitting here building imaginary stories and talking about stuff that doesn't have one answer.
That's funny, I used to like lions as cartoon characters but the more I learned about them as actual species the less I liked them. Maybe I'm just a step behind. ;)
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You're always welcome to talk to me privately, if you're ever so inclined. :) Though I very, very much enjoy your presence here on Weasyl and hope that you stick around. I'm following 38 people but only a few actually upload things regularly, including yourself. We don't have anything here like Cop Story, as far as I know.
Ahahaha... your family would call me stunted too, even though my brain was always far ahead of my emotional/social capacity. 25, single, jobless and back at home (due to my accident), went to college late (but a very good one) and just started driving last November. Spend most of my time creating music, stories, or crappy sketches now, but... I've led an interesting life and accomplished some pretty awesome things when I was out of home, even being totally independent with a job and all. I'll never be the "man" who goes onto make a family, raise kids, and be a cog of society, but I have my own ways to contribute to the world that those people never could. I'm already blessed to have touched the lives of a lot of people I've come across, even if it's just online in conversations like this. As long as we do our best with what we've got, man.
Hah... well, it's just that it always seems if I hate something, it's because I'm envious or don't understand why it is the way it is. I get where lions come from a bit more, even if I don't totally like it; if cartoons approached them realistically, it'd be fascinating. Also, TLK can go fade into obscurity, that movie did all kinds of damage to certain species.
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Thanks! I might someday but yes, I'm enjoying our conversations here a lot too. :) And you're right about doing our best, I can sort of see why society wants to fit everything into one system but life is much more complicated than that and when people decide to value lives based on what they physically produce and so on it gets scary.
I dunno if I can blame TLK for that - I don't have many feelings for the movie at this point but I think it's more the fault of people who confuse things happening on tv with How Real Life Always Is and there's no way to proof any fiction against those.
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No pressure, just putting the offer out there for you if you'd like at any point. That's a good point you have... I forget that I have to give people themselves their fair share of the blame, haha. If it's on tv it must be real! Oi. -.-;
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SethSholf
Oh wow. This piece is lovely, really moving. Just reading the words is making me tear up