For me the saddest thing about Actor Chadwick Boseman's passing was that in the months before his death he felt the need to delete many photos he had online and even shut down his IG account entirely because so many people were making fun of his weight loss.
Of course, those people didn't know he was dying of a cancer that was literally eating him alive, but that's the point. We often don't know what battle someone is fighting. There is so much that is hidden from us within the experience of others. We project what we wish to see, whether we are looking for something to love or to tear down.
Chadwick was a great actor and by all accounts from those who knew him, also a lovely person. I'm sorry to see him die so young, but what hurts is knowing he died without having the world with him in his fight. I hope he felt safe enough to let the public know, and hope his decision not to came from a place of feeling strong in a desire to withdraw from the public into the intimacy of friends and family only in those last months. I hope his community offered him as much as he needed to go in peace, feeling the warmth of the appreciation so many hold for him.
Let's consider this a warning shot. Let's do better going forward. Let's be heroically kind. Let us live our lives with the unyielding generosity of spirit that can only be called heroic, leaving no one out.
No more heroes on a screen. Be the hero of someone's darkest moments.
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So many people are fighting battles we just don't see. And sometimes, even when they do see them, they judge them against their own standards about what is difficult, belittling the other's issues as insignificant compared to their own. That's happened to me a bit lately, where I've been belittled for my experiences and it kinda gaslighted me a little bit, where I felt really shitty for even vocalising what I was sitting with at the time. I'm really, really conscious about practicing compassion, because it is a PRACTICE. Sometimes our default is to judge - and that's okay, but to act on it is to lack the courage to do the work to be otherwise. Kindness, always. It's the new hero look. xx
It's such a simple thing once we decide to do it. It's just a commitment we each need to make for ourselves, really.
Committment/intention is everything, don't you think? It's no good going 'oh kind is nice' and in next breath being an asshat.
If he was alive today to see the number of people he has inspired and impacted. I am sure it will be the greatest honor he ever received. But in your word, “ Let's do better going forward. Let's be heroically kind. Let us live our lives with the unyielding generosity of spirit that can only be called heroic, leaving no one out.”
We should be kind to all and sundry.
So beautifully put, we can place so many expectations on others and be so quick to think the worst of them as well. Less of the judgement and more focusing on being present and understanding, and yes let us all become heroes. xx
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Instead of being a negative person he decided to just close it down and move on with life.
I like that interpretation. Thanks for sharing it.