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No perfect Man!

Pint-sized power barrel
Is it not funny that eulogies tend to paint a rosy picture of the recently departed? They make it sound as if he was such a good person that the world has lost another good man (or woman) that it could do better with. The audience would feel like kicking themselves for not taking the trouble to know him better when he was around.

Whenever somebody passes away, everyone will be expressing their condolence, praising them to high heavens (pun unintended). 

A little help from the 'Hand of God'

I have always thought of this every now and then. It came around again with the recent passing of Diego Maradona, easily the best, if not the second-best footballer ever to be born. (The first being Pele). I was prodded to write this post, especially after a friend sent a Twitter post curated by a fellow Twitter user.

Like a wet blanket, whilst the whole world, football enthusiasts and otherwise, were sending condolences in their social media platforms, he warned netizens to mourn but not to canonise the footballer. He reminded people of him being a poor role model. Despite his brilliant unrooting from the clutches of poverty to shine as a soccer star, he could not escape the hydra of cocaine. Surrounding himself with sycophants, he expressed his support for horrible dictators and terrorist regimes. It became clear that he also had a brush with the law on tax evasion issues and loan defaults. Who can forget his cheats on the field, the legendary ‘Hand of God’ being one? 

With Castro

Nevertheless, there is no perfect Man. Technically, we cannot take Jesus, Mohammad or Rama as being prototypes of Man; Jesus being God himself, Mohammad is the Prophet, and Rama was an avatar of Vishnu himself.

Mortal men are bogged with the adversities and the uncertainties of life. When swayed with unpredictability, he may go astray. I think we should hail the successes of an individual rather than shoot him down with his failures. After all, only the unsinned can cast the first stone. Ugly moulds can be found in all closets.  

In the prophetic lyrics of Chumbawamba's one-hit-wonder song 'Tubthumping' (You never gonna get me down) which seems to make its round as a lockdown parody - He sings the songs that remind him of the good times, he sings the songs that remind him of the better times!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. 


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Location: Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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