Art

Is art better at dealing with death than we are in the general population? Is it because musicians or filmmakers are better with the topic? The idea of the tortured artist is a long standing one…

I made a point in my presentation the other day about the fact that that we like flowery greeting cards to convey sympathy because we are suckers for romanticized notions of death. We like to cheer people up (we can’t help but be cheerleaders when brushing against the idea that the pursuit of happiness is our ultimate earthly goal), and so we are given a greeting card industry that relies on ambiguous images and attempts at poetic sentiments. 

I think this is especially true for professionals who only slightly interact with the grieving person. For those of us who are tangentially involved in someone’s life, it is just so much easier to rely on tired sentiments and beautiful images. Empathy is HARD. As professionals we are ill-equipped to deal with death and so it simply feels more appropriate to fall-back on artful greeting cards.

Does beautiful imagery or beautiful words make anything any better for someone who is grieving? Nope. It could actually make the idea of sympathy cards easier for the giver than the receiver… 

Think about it. When we're choosing a card, we're reading it from our point of view. We’re trying to picture the person we’ll give it to and how it will land with them, but at the end of the day, we'll almost always rely on something that tries to 'lessen the blow'. Cards will never have  the word ‘death’ contained in the prose… society tells us it is too harsh. We’ll always include scripted writing and pictures of flowers or sunsets… even though none of that will ever be helpful. It makes the GIVER feel better. It sets the GIVER at ease to give beautiful, poetic cards. As professionals, that is very desirable. 

I'm not saying we do this on purpose, or that it is our fault. We just don't know what else to do. Cards that that are honest are not readily available, and i'm not even sure many professionals would feel comfortable sending one if they did exist.

But there may be some grievers who wouldn’t be offended, and perhaps may even say that it’s helpful. Who knows? 

I think I have a multi-million dollar idea for greeting cards. The only words that will be in them is “I’m sorry, this sucks, and there is nothing I can say that can make this better”.

Or maybe edgier ones that simply say “this fucking sucks”... I like it. I’m going to run with this.