>>24599370
>Would you tell them that it's their fault for dying, because they haven't done anything to improve their situation?
No, but terrible shit happens to lots of people all over every day since the beginning of human history.
Consider: I had two friends who both died of cancer in their twenties, a guy and a girl. The guy was kind, studious, polite, well-liked and respected, came from a caring family. When he got cancer, he took it on the chin--at first. Pretty quickly after that, when it looked to be terminal, his whole personality flipped. Now he was resentful and raging that he never did drugs, never partied hard, never got his dick wet, and he wanted (in his words) to rub everyone else's noses in his misery. The girl, on the other hand, having come from an exceptionally difficult Catholic family (the kind where the father demands that the ladies not speak in his presence and likes using a belt as a disciplinary device), got cancer, and went from being rebellious and angry to almost overnight making peace with her fate. Her cancer went into remission...and then came back. But it didn't matter to her. She never had an unkind word about anyone after her first diagnosis, and she joked and enjoyed her time with us, her friends, during her last year.
Who died the better death? Who went out the way they wanted? Who do you think is remembered better by anyone remaining?
>But that never happens - for human males there are only demands, demands, demands.
Sure, but the basic demand for men is to be men. That's not to dismiss that society has made a bunch of turns the last century to relegate us to the dustbin, but do you want to be a helpless scared child, or do you want to be a man, a man capable of taking on the world on your own terms? Mind, that expectation isn't so different from things even 2,500 years ago, as Greek and Roman writings show us, women had outlets that men didn't, and that remains the case. But you're here on the /lit/ board--surely there's something here that interests you, like writing, or reading, which can be a springboard to healthy outlets, right?
