I don’t know about you but I tend to find, in the wake of a tragedy, that my thoughts are in fact not with ‘the family at their difficult time’.
They tend to be ‘with’ or rather ‘about’ the victim.
‘With’ implies I know where in the afterlife the victim now is. I don’t want to go into that on a school day.
I have no idea where the victim’s thoughts are supposed to be located but I don’t see why that should be required.
You may think, sorry believe (that's like a superthink), that those thoughts should be located, located, located in heaven. But true believers would rather see the subject of yesterday’s blog who was gay as well as a presenter of property programmes, firmly in any version of Hell that has a spare seat. Whether or not you are still willing to allow him post-mortal “thoughts” at all is upto the vile mix of invented biases you call faith.
So, back to me.
My thoughts "at this difficult time" tend to be about the opportunities that ended up missing the final count, about the life they would have led. Mixed with a few guesses about the turning that led to the dead end.
And then my thoughts tend to lead back to myself. About how to avoid the same thing happening to me.
Easy in this case as I don't envisage being into auto-erotic asphyxiation any time soon, even though I have been filling up with unleaded for years. And no, that's not a euphemism.
And I think about how I can avoid the same thing happening to someone else I know or may come to know.
So how can your thoughts be with a family member that you not only have never met but also have no idea if they even exist?
What an insult.
That’s not to say a note of sympathy will not be appreciated and truly meant but, in general, I don’t know if people I don't know have a family. Do you?
I do know that when people bother to do a little research and ask me if I “have a family” that, in their mind, parents and siblings don’t count.
They actually mean 'Have you replicated?', 'Have you added to the number of souls on board Planet Earth?'
Maybe they want to swap nappy changing tips or share the school run but they don’t care about my family. That’s not the insight they are looking for.
Occasionally these guys shelve the hypocrisy and just come out with it “Do you have children?”.
They receive a negative response - there’s no reason they need to know about Tarquin and little Ebenezer.
This gives them all the reason they need to fill their chest cavity with air and deliver a resounding “Well you wouldn’t understand then”.
The subject material that led us here is somewhat secondary to the display of their chest feathers. It's as likely to be beer mat collecting as it is the Chilean earthquake.
I think we all know what a special type of half-wit these folks are.
All this leads me to suspect that other people may be like me.
I don’t think their thoughts are with these invisible families either.
And I don’t think yours are.
At this difficult time or otherwise.
And if they are, then for how long? A second, a minute, until Eastenders starts?
Where should those thoughts be? Maybe your own family? Maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe that's the best use of the sometimes salacious journalism that delivers the information.
It's not good enough to feel a bit bad for a time. (Or just claim to have done so).
I bet some mass murderers have cried at Love Story but when it comes to emotions it’s the consistency of the congruity that needs a little work.
Use of a stock phrase is all well and good if it gets you through PMQs but this is important stuff.
Such a performance of empathy is right up there with “Keep in touch” as said by people who don’t bother themselves. It’s dumbed down to the level of a Christmas card by people who offer no other form of communication thoughout the year and who still cannot be bothered to take 5 or 10 of their precious seconds to write any personalisation of interest on the card they are about to post.
What are they thinking of? Well, themselves mainly. Or at the very least, nothing much at all.
These are all signs that people think of themselves first and very often only.
It may not be all bad. It’s part of our DNA.
At least we should be honest about it.
