"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

death at 170mph
March 26, 2006 - 9:21 pm

i learned this from fark. it was, if i recall correctly, a newsflash.

i don't know much about the racing world, so i've no idea if he was a star or a rookie -- i'm sure the article said, but i don't recall just now.

in reading the comments on fark, more than one person mentioned that they couldn't find the link to the video.. other said espn was showing the wreck over and over.

not too long ago, i think i'd have wanted to see the wreck to -- just to see the wreck. something about seeing a car moving at 170mph hit something.. is compelling. isn't that twisted?

today, however, i thought.. why on earth would i want to see someone die? why on earth would any network want to show it again and again? why on earth would people complain they couldn't find the link to watch someone die?

i thought about this for a moment or two.. and skimmed some more comments.

there seemed to be some confusion as to just what happpened.. just what was accurate in the story. so i decided to read the story.

why on earth would i want to read a story where i know the most important detail.. i don't know, but i did.

a video link was there. i clicked. part of me thought it was just a press conference about what exactly happened.

it wasn't.

it was the video of the practice lap.. it showed the one car lose control, hit the outter wall.. and slide down towards the grass. other cars zoomed by.

one car didn't zoom by.

this one car hit the wrecked car square in the rear and launched into the air.. tumbling and breaking into bits.

170 miles per hour is very fast. the laws of physics at such speeds are brutal when applied to a frail human body.

the video then went to a press conference where it was said both drivers were flown to a hospital and it was at the hospital the one was pronounced dead.

i thought for a bit. it's not true part of me thought the link was just to conference. i knew what i was clicking on. i knew what i was looking for when i clicked on the story -- i wanted to see the video.

i'm back to why on earth would anyone want to watch a person die?

i thought about this. i'm not sure why, but i did want to see the video.

typing about it now.. i find myself thinking about "stranger in strangeland" and the observation that most things people find funny are at the expense of someone else.

there's nothing funny about the accident.

my point is human nature. what makes us laugh is, far more often than not, the misfortune (or precieved misfortune) of others. we are drawn to this.. the misfortune of others.

if there's an accident on the highway, people drive past slow to gawk. rubberneckers. traffic back up for hours just so people can get ten seconds of commercial free gore.

why did i watch the video? why did i want to?

simple curiosity? perhaps. simple human nature? perahps.

a comment from the fark discussion sticks in my head... someone wrote to the effect, "at least he died doing what he loved."

not many deaths can be considered good, but the comment seems.. to strike at the heart of another matter.

everyone must die -- sooner or later, their's nothing morbid about it. there's limitless ways to die.. and of all the possible ones.. i do find a degree of comfort in the notion that some lucky (if you'll forgive the use) people do indeed get to die doing what they love.

i'm not sure you'll take my thinking how i mean it, but then.. you don't have to .. it's my thinking.

"at least he died doing something he loved" -- i found that i envied that.. seeing someone die.. doing what they loved, living their dream (of course, i'm fully assuming it was his dream and he did, indeed, love it) was worth watching.

i find.. a degree if inspriation in that. that sounds wrong. that sounds off.

would that i could live the rest of my life doing exactly what i wanted.

after all.. months ago... i heard sirens.

anyway. today, some guy i never heard of died at 170mph.