[lit-ideas] Re: Superman Returns
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 12:13:57 -0700
But you can't know that you won't joke about dementia when you get as old as
I because you aren't that old yet. You are merely in the category of the
non-soldier, non-mortician, and non-old.
My mother died of dementia as well. I know a number of people who "fear
it," but they nevertheless joke about it, e.g., their "senior moments."
And now that I think about it, surely it is healthier to joke about an
imagined threat than to fear it. In some cases fear and worry can bring
about, as a self-fulfilled prophecy, the thing worried about and feared - at
least I encountered that argument while studying Mark Twain in my youth, esp
Roughing It.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 11:51 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Superman Returns
How much younger I am than you is not relevant to whether or
not I like jokes about Alzheimer's.
LH>It isn't a non-sequitur if as I assume, people in a dangerous
LH>situation such as soldiering or people who are in an
LH>unpleasant industry such as morticians joke about
LH>what would normally, i.e., by people not so employed,
LH> be considered unpleasant and unfitting. But it is a fact
LH>that they do. It is also a fact that old people (who are by
LH> definition in a dangerous situation) joke about dementia.
Clearly my mother, who died of dementia and in her last decades, long before
she
developed it, feared it, was not old.
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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