I think Haiti caught me a little by surprise.  I mean, it’s a small country in the Caribbean, which is known primarily for sunshine and sandy beaches.  And really, a 7.0 isn’t *that* big…  at least not for a country flush with industrialization, cash, and seismic engineering know-how.

The death toll is looking as though it will level out somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000, a number which only takes on its full meaning when considering that Haiti’s population is only about 10,000,000 and that most of that population is concentrated in urban areas, where my instincts tell me that a substantial percentage of the casualties have occurred.  Simply horrible.  By comparison, 9/11 killed about 0.01% of the population of the United States — let us hope that the vitriolic rhetoric of madmen like Pat Robertson does not make the Haitians think God has declared war on them, or they may simply never recover.

Damage is funny…  it’s never localized.  I see in local news that a native of Port Orchard, where my father works, was killed in a collapsed orphanage.  Molly Hightower‘s parents hoped she might be recovered even though a survivor from the 7th floor had located her on the 5th — but alas, it was not too be.  They have updated Molly’s blog with a final post.  I struck me that she had titled the blog “525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year?”  Which for some reason makes me start to tear up.  Weird.  Then again, it’s been a rather emotional week.

What to do?  Mostly nothing.  As my old friend Jon Grout noted via Facebook just a few moments ago,

There is enough misery in the world that you can be unhappy all day every day if you choose. For me, I feel like I need to expose myself to enough media to be informed, and then go on living my life, being happy, supporting my loved ones, doing my job, and being prepared to donate when bad things happen. You don’t have to feel guilty for living a happy life, and sometimes that means limiting exposure to unconstructive vicarious trauma.

Which is true.  I have poisoned myself by taping my eyelids up and forcing myself to watch shit before, out of some conviction that if the world was suffering, I should suffer (at least a little bit, passively) along with it.  Not very useful, really.

Of course, if you’re an adventurous individual of independent means, and you happen to have a plane handy (for instance, a Pilatus), and you care deeply about your fellow humans, you could always get behind the wheel and ferry equipment and supplies into Haiti directly.

Martha Lyon just posted this as her facebook status, and it struck me quite favorably:

Contemplation often makes life miserable.  We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.

Upon cross examination, she revealed that this quote’s author is Nicolas Chamfort — a French playwright, and a contemporary (and fickle courtier) of Louis XIV. The sentiment is lovely — that the best life is one lived close to the heart, relatively uncontaminated by the cold and exacting influence of logical deliberation, or the alienating effect of metacognition.  I find that part of my mind buys into this.

Unfortunately, after his days as a courtier he fell in with the revolutionaries — he was amongst the first to storm into the Bastille in the first, heady days of the Revolution.  Unfortunately, his loyalty to revolutionary causes was too sane to follow the fanaticism of the Terror, and his satirical tongue, unrestrainable, got him in trouble.  He was imprisoned; then after release, the authorities issued another warrant for his arrest (fie, seditious tongue!).  Poor Chamfort decided to take his own life.

Sadly, he was a lousy suicide:

Chamfort is the very exemplar of the botched suicide. Unable to tolerate the prospect of being imprisoned once more, in September 1793 he locked himself into his office and shot himself in the face. The pistol malfunctioned and he did not die even though he shot off his nose and part of his jaw. He then repeatedly stabbed his neck with a paper cutter, but failed to cut an artery. He finally used the paper cutter to stab himself in the chest. He dictated to those who came to arrest him the well-known declaration — “Moi, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, declare avoir voulu mourir en homme libre plutot que d’etre reconduit en esclave dans une maison d’arret” — which he signed in a firm hand and in his own blood. His butler found him unconscious in a pool of blood.

I had to google to find the translation, which is:

“I, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, declare that I wished to die a free man rather than be enslaved in a house of detention.”

Which, when you get down to it, is extremely banal for a so-called “famous” quotation.

Well, so much for lovely thoughts.  The contemplation of this one has made me rather pessimistic.  In retrospect, I wish that I had spent more time working, and thought less about this quote, and not learned anything at all about how poor Nicolas Chamfort had lived.

I don’t have anything nice to say about my own life at the moment, so I’m going to post the lyrics to a song I love (unaccountably, since it is a strangely raucous country western-styled song by a Canadian hip hop artist, and I generally enjoy neither country nor hip hop).  If this is insufficiently personable for you, then go get stuffed.

Rough House Blues

I’m Going Down The Road Feeling Bad, Bye And Bye
Deep Fried Blues But I’d Rather Die Than Cry
Gas Station Food Bound To Go Stale Soon
There’s A Curse In The Air And A Toe-Nail Moon
Yeah, Some Of These Towns Are Still Non-Friendly
And This Is The Hammer That Killed John Henry
I’m Sick Of Being Tired, Sick Of The Circus Life
Here Day-Dreaming Of A Waitress As The Perfect Wife
Utterly Inappropriate, Taken Out Of Context
Degenerate Nervousness, Developing A Complex
No Good With Money, Left-Overs In A Bitch Bag
Fryin’ Pan Soul And A Face Like A Dishrag
A Million Old Movies, I Figured I’d Tell
Childhood Memories Triggered By Smell

So Now What, You May Ask, Well That’s Hard To Say
Because That Old Jack Of Diamons Is A Tough Card To Play

All The Wrong Reasons, Just Another Skull To Crack
Askin’ The Dust, I’m Stuck In A Cul-De-Sac
And It May Sound Silly But To Me The Threat Is Very Real
So That’s Why I Sing Love Songs And Carry Steel
Women And Warfare, Roaches And Roadkills
No Easy Answers, No Deadlines And No Frills
Catchin’ Your Drift, Receivin’ The Warning
Packin’ My Things, I Live In The Morning
I Drive All Night, Gone To See My Friend
One Day This Highway Will Be My End
Now The Hills Are Alive And The Motor Is Dead
That Man Has A Zero Floating Over His Head
I Follow My Instincts, Sometimes Follow Dogs
Drink Muddy Water,Sleep Inside Hollow Logs

So Now What, You May Ask, Well That’s Hard To Say
Because That Old Jack Of Diamonds Is A Tough Card To Play