I assume you’ve heard about the mini-media lynching that Rodolfo Sancho faced when he traveled to Thailand to visit his son. I did not see the actor’s statements when he was released from prison, although I imagine they would have been shown a thousand times in all the programs that have been clinging like ticks to the diseased jugular of this terrible crime for two months. But then I read in the press that they called him out because he had told journalists that “they wouldn’t get any tears from him” and that such an event could be viewed “as a tragedy or as a challenge,” and that It would be a challenge for him too. These simple sentences caused an uproar; They bashed him, calling him arrogant and arrogant, and even such a serious and serious newspaper as La Vanguardia published this headline: “Harsh criticism of Rodolfo Sancho on his son Daniel’s first visit to Thailand: ‘He was unlucky.'” In short, the The pressure was so great that the actor had to more or less apologize the next day. Something unusual, because I consider his words to be completely normal. Furthermore, given the horror he is experiencing and the fact that he has seen his son for the first time, it would also have been very understandable for him if he had started singing the Macarena or walking through the prison on one leg run . Please respect the grief of others. A true respect for pain.
The numerous assessors of other people’s behavior therefore came to the conclusion that Rodolfo Sancho was “unlucky”. Society always seems to be very aware of the attitude that victims must maintain. This means that if something very bad happens to you, you not only have to deal with it, but you also have an obligation to do so with due decency. I’m playing your role, wow. Cancer sufferers are told: optimism, optimism, positive thinking, constant joy that this is how you beat the disease! So not only are you not allowing the patient to experience his natural and inevitable downturns, his tears and his fears, but you are also blaming him for any possible deterioration: you didn’t make an effort, you didn’t laugh enough.
Widowers (I am one of them) are asked and commanded to cry at the first moment of widowhood, in the funeral home, in the cemetery, just when, exhausted by the torment to come, one does not even have tears. But cry, cry, you cry, don’t worry, cry! They cheer. Now: A few weeks later, when you start to find the way to your grief and your crying, everyone again divinely knows what you need to do: Stop crying! Enough of the sadness! Go outside, go to the cinema, be happy!
In the dark years after the 2008 crisis, I founded a few dozen teaming groups, a solidarity platform that allows you to donate one euro a month to a good cause. The groups came from families without means (some are still in force). Although their extreme economic conditions were documented by documents, I initially had some discussions with readers who were outraged to see photos on Facebook of some families smiling while drinking coffee on a terrace. They were shocked at their luck and at wasting money on coffee. As if the poor had to be eternally sad and miserable, as if eternal suffering was required of them in order to deserve alms. They didn’t understand something that was obvious to me: when you’re at your wits’ end and the power is cut off, perhaps it’s more necessary to add a little sweetness to your life by drinking a beer at a beach bar and buying chickpeas. Anyway, that’s why there are people begging on their knees in the streets. I’ve always hated this dramatic excess, but in reality they are reacting to what a certain society demands of them: they portray themselves as poor.
In his book “The Shadow of Naipaul,” Paul Theroux quotes the beautiful words that a 97-year-old woman said to him: “Grief is pure and holy.” How wise and how accurate. We humans don’t know what to do with grief; not even with our own, and with that of others we are certainly disastrous. We fear the pain, we reject it, we become moral, judgmental and even lynch. In doing so, we should do exactly the opposite: be truly empathetic and respect the sanctity of grief, that is, the right that every person has to try to deal with their suffering as best as possible.
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