edit: when written the assault potential wasn't included
When people die, we remember what could of been. Sadly we don't live our lives this way. It doesn't have to be a perfect correlation, but .9 vs .2 is a big gap.
Part of the problem of not recognizing the truth is that those on the same path don't get the knowledge they need. Children, teenagers, young adults, even senior citizens need to be sometimes reminded that acting like .... makes you a .....
Chris Henry had all the tools. I even had him on my fantasy team this year, before the injury. Even though this is a small connection, it still was one. Overall there is a reason why things like this happen.
We live our lives (in many ways) like there is nothing to lose (not in the ultimate sense, but in general everyday things we simply don't look at consequences or think it applies to us).
We can be oblivious to this point until something happens. It could be a drunk who crashes his car, it could be a person getting into a gang fight and going to jail. Sometimes these aren't devastating, other times death ensues.
Overall there are millions of big and small things that can come up which alter our perception and enlighten us. Too bad we aren't into enlightening ourselves anymore, if anything that is seen as the enemy. Wisdom is considered more of a hindrance than a bedrock in today's society. Believe me, we're paying the price.
The real sad thing is the divergence from how we live our lives, and how we each individually know we should live our lives. In Henry's case, it was having the bright idea he obviously didn't have. At that point, for whatever reason, I'm making the case that society as a whole is the problem, allowed him to think, or better yet, 'not to think' of the consequences of his current actions. Because knowledge is 'stupid'.
He may very well have turned himself around on the surface, but his allowance of stupidity, was still around under the surface when he made his fateful decision. That lack of intellectual curiosity, allowed him to easily abandon some sense of CYA when jumping. Intellectual curiosity seems to be as dead as the dinosaurs.
Part of the problem, imo is that we're living in a fantasy world right now. We really are. Fake money, fake jobs, fake reforms, fake just about everything. Bank goes bad, BAILOUT! Don't past a test, there's a class wide curve. Everyone gets a trophy. Everyone wins, no one loses. Therefore if there is only one way to things, blindness, how can you have the ability to see?
Society is currently set up that we don't see the problems of our actions until a breaking point hits. In this case, for Chris Henry, that breaking point, preceded by his lifelong actions, gave him the idea that it was okay to be in the back of a moving truck with a pissed off girlfriend - for whatever small reason.
An athlete cheats on his wife, and Tiger finally comes back to reality, and it isn't pretty. These sorts of gaps are now the bedrock of our society. Everyone pretends, no one thinks. Everyone just goes along.
The sad thing is this permeates all of our society. Sometimes it's police, sometimes it's congress, or bankers, or athletes. But we are all fine to not find the cause of the problems, as long as someone puts a label on it (true or not) we can forget what we are supposed to learn and move on.
Your actions define you. Big or small, not stopping for that red light or stop sign can kill you. Talking back to a pissed off person can get you shot. Allowing big banks to rig the game, will crush all of us.
We're getting to the point where our lives are dictated by the bigger ones, not the smaller ones. So while we've been able to live like this without much consequence, that consequence is coming. When that point arrives, we probably won't have the ability to choose the right course. Because we're such piss poor critical thinkers. We're too concerned about tax money being mine, or 'them that has, deserves'. Or all we tolerate is ET, instead of real news, if you can find it.
Chris Henry is a sad situation. It just shows you that even giving 2/3rd effort to change, isn't enough. You can't keep the same viewpoint, just alter it slightly. It's okay to be a dummy, as long as guns or drugs aren't involved. Wrong, it's stupid to be a dummy at any time.
You have to make a fundamental change, to use what separates us from the beasts - our mind. Don't go around life like Red Foreman calls Eric.
It takes full commitment, to break down and critically think about all your actions. Re-evaluate them, and see if it's really in your best interest. Henry didn't do that, or at the very least hadn't completed that process fully. No one will know how far down the road he came, but it did seem like to me he was making progress. But complacency killed him. Because he fooled himself into making a fateful decision.
Chris Henry died because that's what occurred. On the surface he'd learned, but he hadn't tried hard enough (in reality) to change himself. Had he, he never would of been in the back of that truck.
I always have found it funny when people control the process, but ignore the steps. Like when Obama says I want single payer, but I'm going to go for something three steps away from that as a starter. It's asinine. Go for what you feel is right. In any arena. If you position is just, stand for it. Don't go along with the crowd, because mob mentality doesn't mean it's right. (and 3 people or more can create a mob mentality)
Henry died because of the same sophistry. He determined this was something he could do, when it's obvious to any calm, sane mind you don't do what he did. He never fully realized what sort of control he had over his life and subsequent death. However again, I think this is much more widespread, an epidemic of sorts, amongst my fellow Americans, and perhaps the world at large.
We focus on the end game, not the means. Or to use my 1st Yoda phrase of the post, 'All his life looked to the future, instead of where he was....what he was doing'
When did we stop listening to our gut that says, 'this is a helluva bad idea'? When did this lack of a gut feeling to CYA become the norm? Embedded in not only ourselves, but our collective media, entertainment, employment, economy, government (federal, state, local) and overall purpose or goal of ourselves, our society, our nation, our species? Or maybe we never had one, but the barbaric nature of our past lent to a higher degree of CYA, something which we've lost the past few generations. Which is only now opening up a whole new slew of problems we never had to face, because we weren't this stupid about things that obvious can affect us. Why were Indians resourceful? Because if they didn't use every part of the buffalo for something purposeful, they risked death. That moral hazard has been stripped away. Chris Henry is a perfect example of this rearing it's ugly head.
Also this is a situation where more than one of these things had to happen. He jumped on, she hit the gas. Both acting like idiots. That's the truth. We're heading into a world where the idiots aren't going to be protected anymore. Each idiot will suffer, and that's probably about 80 percent of us. 100 percent at any given time.
The key in my estimation is that people have start taking things serious again, that you have to get it right the first time, or you get no second chance.
Economics, Politics, even entertainment has to be viewed through a different prism, a more enlightened one, or else Chris Henry becomes the norm. It's the collective lack of caring over generations that allowed Chris Henry to become who he became.
Even if things in many ways regarding this is getting worse, there is also significant push back. Bad times awakes some people. It's a long haul. Bad things must happen, or people don't wake up. Eventually a society changes after enough people change. We're not there yet. But this pushback into reality is growing, even if slowly. Maybe it's the next crash, maybe another tiger woods, maybe Obama crashing and burning as a President. Who knows. But we're not there yet. But if you make the decision to start thinking, we'll be closer than we were before, and that's the only way we're going to get there. To start thinking, and stop acting like Eric Foreman.
The old adage, look before you leap, and think before you speak is never truer here. The middle school mentality of the U.S. must grow up. That's what it is. I remember middle school clearly, and it's a microcosm of how are society now behaves. Gossip, rumor, flaming, anti-knowledge, and do the cool thing always. That has become our media, economy, and politics. Is it any wonder why we sometimes see the consequences via such events as Chris Henry's death?
Henry did it to himself
Realize it, and save yourself and/or have that knowledge to save someone else.
Deny it, and you set the stage for yourself or a friend or loved one, to end in the same fate, even if it's not falling out of the back of a truck.
Henry could be your wake up call. Not just about life and death issues. But business decisions. Friendships. Relationships. Etc.
Use Henry's death as a wake up call and his life won't have been in vain. Do not use it as a lesson, and his death was. Luckily I think his death will impact someone, perhaps even on the Bengals roster, or some blog reader/writer someone on the internet, so his death won't have been in vain. But why not make it worth more?
Excuses are like elbows, everyone's got one or TWO!
When it comes to doing the right thing, excuses never are justified. Politically, economically, personally. etc.
Don't be too tired to do the right thing, or care. Start looking for the info you need to make the right decisions. Think Critically. Form your own position, and don't be afraid to alter it if you forgot to include something....that's how you LEARN!
Break down the situation. Think if doing what you want to do really aligns itself with your overall goals. Have goals, write them down if necessary, etc. etc. If your job swamps you, look for another. Whatever the case is, find balance.
How does that old line from Empire Strikes Back go? 'How will I know the good side from the bad?', Yoda replies, 'you will know, when you are calm, at peace'
Never truer words. Chris Henry's death is this. He wasn't calm, thus he jumped in the back of the truck. He didn't think, he let the emotions get the best of him, and died because of it. Just like millions of foreclosures, job losses, trillions of debt, broken families, the list goes on ad infinitum.
Also this is a general response to this situation and what I see in the larger context. I feel for his kids, and wish them well. The girlfriend will have to live her life knowing she killed her own golden goose. Maybe even over something stupid like 'needing to wash clothes but she wanted to party' or something silly.
It's sad, but it just IS. That's what reality is. His life is over, nothing will change. His story, the lesson of his life, has ended. There will be no do overs, and the past won't change. Whatever his life was supposed to be, now never was, or in another context, just is what is was. If we keep lying to ourselves, expect more of the same. That's far worse than saying anything truthful, and blunt about Chris Henry. Because it involves death, or something close to that, all for the sake of not adhering to a cultural norm, that in of itself, is only a societies guess at a norm. (Societal norms are guesses accepted by the society). But when society is the problem, perhaps we should shake up some of our norms. Again omitting what caused his death is nice, but at the peril of everyone else. At this point, after all the bs we've witnessed over the last decade, I'm done with it. It's put up or shut up time. We either do the right things, take the right steps, or we go down. So it's time to do what's right, not what's nice.
Chris Henry died because he was a dip, may god (or whatever you may or may not believe) bless his soul, protect his children, and make his death worthwhile. If we deny that, we deserve our fate.
Sorry about the soap box, but I have a bunch left over from raiding the Boy Scouts soap box racer derby the night before.