From Paradox Paradise to social media profiles, Tanja Radmilo is not short of an opinion or two.
As the famous quote says: „Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, and everyone thinks everyone else’s stinks“. Except that usually people do not punch you in the face with their stinking assholes. As opposed to opinions. Isn’ t it only expected when the first thing you read in the morning after logging in to your favourite social network is: What’s on your mind? or What’s happening? And there we go. I ate, I am here, I am there, Look at me, I am with…, Feeling…. I mean, you asked me, right?
Instead of talking to their friends, spouses, children, people notify us about every little thing and detail that happened to them. They let us know what they think of this and that. I am profoundly astonished when I see that wives congratulate wedding anniversaries to their husbands who lie next to them in bed. I get even more confused when some of them write odes to partners who are not even on Facebook. What does it look like at home? She nudges him with her elbow, he is almost asleep. „Darling, I posted something for you on Facebook, could you just check it and like it?“ Or: „Honey, could you come over and see what I wrote for you on my computer?“ Ridiculous, yet harmless.
The above examples are minor idiocies of everyday. Nasty and malign stuff happens when something big occurs. Like last week when a young women killed herself and her son because of… I don’t know, I only know and believe that she was not well. Then the Supreme FaceCourt opened its session and did away with her. I will not repeat here many judgements, allegations, accusations, ruling and decisions of this highly esteemed Court. The defendant in the case cannot speak for herself.
When people are well, they are one kind of people, when they are not well, they are something else. My Dad always used to tell us that if he got cancer, he would rather kill himself then die slowly in pain. When he got cancer, he did not kill himself, he was dying slowly and in pain, and oh, boy, how he wanted to live, even in pain. So, we don’t know. If somebody asks, I say that my Dad died of liver cancer. Full stop. I do not say that he died because a metastasis did something to his brain or lungs. Nor do I care, we were fighting against cancer and we lost the battle.
The same applies to mental disorder. The young mother’s suicide was the final metastasis that did it for her and for her young boy, unfortunately. I cannot even imagine the depth of the loss for families and friends and I cannot understand how people think they have the right to judge from their comfortable living rooms. The only think that I understand is that she was not well.
So, all of you Assbook freaks out there, spare us of writing about what’s on your mind and when you see a scared somebody in the street look them in the eye and ask them, but really ask them: What’s on your mind? How do you feel?
