Plane Crash/Human Behavior Comments

Yesterday a jet airplane crashed in Greece killing all aboard. Turns out that a third of the victims were children, which always makes a disaster of any kind much more horrible. Relatives of the victims, according to news reports, crowded the ticket counter of the airline calling those there 'murderers'.

There were a few things which came to my mind when I was reading this account, regarding irrational behavior, misplaced anger, as well as the blame game. This is why I end up not writing on my blog too, because I read something or hear something and all these things go through my mind and I cannot get them down fast enough, losing quite a bit of what I would have liked to say. Also at times I just don't feel like writing, or start to obsess over whether I have paragraph unity or cohension or if when I reread it I find that I seemed to have rambled, which causes me to delete what I wrote and let days and days go by without making any further attempts to write. But since I am keeping this blog, I really should make the attempt to post entries and let the chippies fall where they may. 8-)

In any case, as always with a tragedy like this, I feel so sad and so sorry for the people left behind. My thoughts linger on the people who died as well, but it is hard to feel sorry for them because they are no longer of this world, so instead I think about their final panic stricken moments and then eternity staring them in the face at the end of it all.

Being human beings, anyone who is honest must admit the capability of us all to make mistakes, for equipment to fail, and disaster sometimes occurring as a result of said mistakes or failures. The blame thing is also quite a human trait as well in that we somehow maybe think we will feel better in our hearts at facing the loss of someone we loved so dearly if we can have an agenda of anger towards those responsible for our pain. Of course I am not overlooking the fact that far too often someone causes this pain purposely through their callous disregard for other people's welfare or by deliberate attack on someone's person, but I am addressing here the fallacy of humanity as well as mechanical failures (the mechanical things created and maintained by humans) and the tragedies such as this plane crash that can result because of these truths.

First off everyone who gets on a plane must know that the possibility exists of its crashing. Also, you average everyday person must know that the ticket agent was not piloting the plane and is therefore not deserving of being yelled at and called a murderer. Finally, and this the scariest of all that comes into my mind, the behavior of crowds of people who are angry and feeling justified about it is appalling and inexcusable.

I realize that I have never faced the death of a loved one via a plane crash, but I have watched my brother, my father, my aunt and my grandmother die, two of them at home. I have watched as the doctors and the hospitals made some misdiagnoses along the way as well and have felt quite angry with those people for those mistakes. I have spoken curtly with those that were there and had nothing to do with the doctor who had said or done the wrong thing. The thing is though, that I was aware that I was wrong to vent on the person like that, and ended up apologizing.

We have all seen it or read about it, I'm sure, a fire and mass hyteria for the exits, with a complete disregard for anyone else, resulting in the deaths of more people than there would have been had the crowd not freaked out. You can always count on the crowd to react that way in the event of such situations. I am sure, scattered here and there throughout the crowd are pockets of people who would not behave so appallingly, but for the most part the masses push through and right over those righteous folks. I find the masses scenerio much more frightening than the actual disaster scenerio.

That is the attitude possessed by those at the airline ticket counter in Greece now. Confronted with the horrific death of their loved ones they have no regard for anyone else but themselves and their pain. Should these people be face to face with the pilot, say for instance he was to survive and face the loved ones of the victims, he would be dead in a matter of moments, beaten to death by the masses. Selfish and self centered to a fault are we, always demanding to be understood and tolerated and refusing to extend the same courtesy to another. It is only by a willingness to admit this capacity in myself that is in every other person that I feel I am able overcome it and avoid behaving like the masses. Oh, that the masses would begin to individually look to themselves honestly and vow to change their ways, we would not have to fear the rioting behavior of the crowds in the future.