TITANIC LESSONS

or How To Remember That Death Doesn't Take Credit Cards

In these days of finely curated algorithms and individually spoon-fed content, it felt almost good to all be experiencing that Titanic submersible horror show together.

It was a shared experience.
A macabre experience but a shared macabre experience.

For as long as there have been rich people there have been not-rich people who love to see them suffer. It’s grim and nothing to be proud of but it is a fact of life.
It’s also probably the reason we loved watching Succession.
Likely borne of the severe disconnect between the haves and have-nots, and the reality that we don’t shop in the same places as rich people, we don’t go to the same restaurants, and we can’t always buy our way out of health or legal problems.

However, more importantly I think, also borne of the idea that the rich are somehow different creatures than us. Somehow they are less human than we are, more two dimensional and therefore easy to make fun of guilt-free. Easy to laugh at when they suffer because we know any grieving will at least take place in pretty snazzy surroundings and with decent catering.

I think that’s fine.

It’s horrible, but it’s fine.

People are horrible and that’s fine.
All of us.
Well, it’s not totally ‘fine’ but it’s just the way it is.
So cut yourself some slack.

When that submersible news story first came out, we all felt terrible.
It was hard to imagine a worse way to go.
Extreme wealth wasn’t even going to save them.
Their money was worthless.
Cramped conditions, unable to stand-up, dwindling air supply, unable to communicate with the outside world.
An actual nightmare come to life.
It was awful to imagine.
Worse still is that it was really hard to make fun of without coming across as an awful person.

Then the news broke that the submersible had imploded.
An instantaneous death that, from what we’ve read from scientists, wouldn’t have provided even a moment of agony for the occupants.
SVVVIPPP!
Gone.

This was great news.

Okay, not great news.
People dying is awful no matter how rich they are.
However, people with way more money than we can possibly imagine having needlessly dying is somehow slightly less awful and infinitely more funny.

Extreme wealth wasn’t even going to save them.
Their money was worthless.
How reassuring.

Again, people are horrible. All of us.

Seeing people who seem to be doing better at life than we are suffer makes us feel better about ourselves.
However, when we joke about terrible things happening to rich people, the joke is kind of on us.
It’s a way of making us feel better about our limitations.
It’s like imagining the fiscal shackles that restrict our movement, are actually holding us securely and safely in one place.
Like we’ve chosen to not have enough money to do daring things.
A bit like wanting to fly high in the sky in the sunshine and then making fun of that idiot Icarus for doing just that.

We’re not really laughing at rich people’s tragedy, we’re taking the weight of daily existence and wilting aspirations off ourselves.
Like our lot in life, or at least where we are currently, is our choice and a damn good choice because look what happens otherwise.
Maybe it is our choice, maybe it isn’t.

But it makes us feel like maybe we’re actually doing okay.
And, you know what? I think we are.

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(Pictured: Author feeling good about his decision to not have enough money to go an submersible to the Titanic)

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Want to give me more money?
I won’t stop you.

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