So you know how sometimes people die in horrifying ways? And this can come to overshadow the achievements and daily experiences of their lives?

Yeah the good news is that everything and everyone dies so this is a great equalizer in terms of everyone having an empty purposeless life. Why is that a good thing? Well so you don’t get jealous of all those special people of course!

And yet if we look at history as a linear narrative compiled from accounts around the world, we are faced with the fact that some people’s lives contribute to the advancement of society, and so not everyone’s life is equally purposeless. These movers and shakers can have an impact based on how they live their life, but also based on how they die and the causes they champion until their final moments.

This is a little scary because it means other people have to be traumatized by their martyrdom or by their punishment at the hands of another party. Sometimes an individual may be known as a special advocate like Mahatma Gandhi, and sometimes they are a member of a notable population, like the victims of Auschwitz. The common thread being that society remembers them in part because of the circumstances of their death.

And yet in these instances, it is important to dramatize history with regard to the ways that these people lived their lives. There is a message to be shared in not only the extraordinary communications of pivotal world leaders, but also in the common daily activities of special populations.

So you can see a person as more than their final moments, and remember to celebrate their life as well as their death. When it comes to seeing some lives as more worthwhile or well-lived, that’s a unique personal opinion even as, arguably, all lives are rendered empty and purposeless by the inevitable void.