1 - Tonight I did one of the more heartbreaking things I've ever had to do. I was sent a letter entirely about the dissolution of a close family member's marriage. It happened very recently, very suddenly. One minute he thought he was in a happy relationship of almost twenty years. 15 seconds later it all ended and his life was ruined.
The letter was an account of how it all came about and the effect it's had on all parties, including the two young kids.
The letter needed to be edited. Grammatically correct. Language cleaned up. Not gonna lie, some of the emotion had to be dulled. It's going to be seen by someone who's used to seeing documents of a kind of standard.
Part of me wishes I wouldn't have touched it. Does the letter have a greater impact with punctuation marks, misplaced modifiers, colloquial phrases and shifts in tense? Maybe it sounds like it's coming from a husband who's weeks removed from losing what he loved the most.
Maybe that's how the letter should have read.
I don't know.
1b - Is it a bad sign that when I got the news of what happened I wasn't surprised? I didn't have any significant feelings of hatred or outrage? I still don't, even after finding out all the specifics of the situation. I feel terrible for the kids and for the man who's life has been ruined, but anger and hatred and shock and disgust aren't in the range of emotions that I've experienced.
It's not that I expect to ever hear about situations like these, it's just that when it does happen it doesn't seem to matter who it happens to, I don't react like I've been blind-sided or the air has suddenly left the room.
The question that I'm sure has plagued other members of my family, "How could she ever do this" has never entered my mind. It's just the way things are, I suppose.
1c - Maybe that leads me into my next topic: Tiger Woods.
Again, not a single thing about this story has made me bat an eye. To recap, Tiger Woods, the world's most famous and wealthy athlete, has allegedly been having an affair with a woman for the past couple years. Three other women have come out and said they have been with him too.
TMZ, the Post, Deadspin, the Sun-Times, ESPN, SI....they've been all over this shit for a week. You can't go to any news site or big time blog and not get hammered with the sordid details of Tiger's supposedly private (HA!) life.
My questions are thus:
1 - How can anyone possibly be surprised that a young, wealthy, insanely famous, successful person that spends the majority of their life on the road could be unfaithful?
2 - Why does Woods owe anyone other-than his family an apology?
3 - Why should you care?
Tiger fucked up. No doubt. But Jordan screwed around. So did Brett Favre. So did Kobe. So did a motherfucking President of the United States. So have countless other public figures that we love to hold to a higher standard.
In the case of Woods, he never professed to being man of the year. He's out there hocking Nike products, Gillette razors and Buicks. When he wasn't he was kicking ass on the gold course. Outside of that...what did anyone really know of him? The guy likes his Privacy (caps for a reason; that's what Tiger named his yacht).
Nobody is perfect. People fuck up. You feel bad for those they hurt but try not to crucify someone for acting on human impulse or because they had a moment of weakness. Everyone has fucked up in some way or another. The most you can hope for is they learn from their mistakes.
1d - Violent crime is the exception. Sorry, lock 'em up.
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