"It always bothers me to see people writing 'RIP' when a person dies. It just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, 'RIP' is the microwave dinner of posthumous honours."
~ Lou Reed
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Friday, 20 September 2019
"It always bothers me to see people writing 'RIP' when a person dies. It just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, 'RIP' is the microwave dinner of posthumous honours." - #QotD
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4 comments:
I agree. The phrase always bugged me, without really knowing why. Thinking about it further, it's because it implies that life is an unpleasant struggle and burden that you only get relief from when you die. You should be embracing the struggle and the burden, because without that there is no nothing. And when your time is up, the best thing someone could say is not to pretend that's a good thing the game is over and you can now rest, but to acknowledge you played the game well and hard, right to the end.
"He's at peace." No he's not: he's dead. "He's gone to a better place." No he hasn't, he's f'ing dead. It's a tragedy -- all the bleeding euphemisms either try to sweep away the disaster, or to mystify it. Acknowledge the tragedy, and (as you say) celebrate what someone made of their one single time on this earth.
There's a lot to be said of Hunter S. Thompson's view: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a Ride!'”
"At the foot of the grave, the Atheist has nothing to say".
That was the sign on a nearby Church.
I emailed the Minister to explain that both the believer and the non believer could speak of the deceased's life, legacy, loved ones left behind. The Atheist can say anything the Minister can say, with the exception of the lies and false hope of "going to a better place", "meeting again", etc.
Poor bugger is so entwined in his religion he just couldn't see it.
I've always thought of being out under a young tree. Graves are strange and isolated.
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