Saturday, May 19, 2007

Could Have, Should Have, Would Have

Hindsight is great, if you learn and build from the past. But, when that turns into "could have, should have, would have's" the doubts and regrets of what didn't happen often leave the experience more traumatic than it initially was.

It seems to me that most of what we hear today in the news is filled with "CSW's". An event occurs and immediately the armchair generals, politicians, quarterbacks, lawyers, theologians, financiers, and talking heads in general are lined up to rehash the event into something other than what it really was. When you're in the 12th hour after an event, the news is already old but it seems that there is always someone left that has something to say about it. At that point we are subjected to opinions that often are well past the point of being enlightening or thought provoking (that is unless you count that thought that passes through your mind of "would that jerk just shut the !@#% up!").

Some news never dies. It comes back on an unbidden and irregular basis to remind you that you experienced the moment once, but you haven't experienced THIS part of the moment yet. Take for instance OJ. So now the clothes he wore when he was handed down his verdict are up for sale. $25,000 will get you "the suit" with shirt and tie included. The skidmarks (left during the final moments before the foreman of the jury began to speak) have (un)fortunately not been preserved for humanity to bid on. Surely that was something that was overlooked at the moment. Think about it - they could have saved those, probably should have saved them, then we would have had a better understanding of just how close to the pucker factor OJ really was at the moment. Oh those "CSW's". The "what if's" in life abound...

The moral of this story? Those who make their livelihoods in regaling us with their opinions of what could have happened, why it should have happened, and more importantly would have happened are oftentimes leaving us with a version of an event that really reeks.




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posted by Is It Just Me? at 6:06 AM