Dumbass Sayings: “He Would Have Wanted This”

Whenever someone dies in the middle of a baseball game or community theater production the people involved have to consider stopping the show to mourn the dead or to keep going in their honor. Inevitably someone says “NO! He would have wanted us to keep going! He would have wanted the show to continue!” Then everyone starts looking at each other with tears in their eyes while nodding and they go on with the show. My big problem with this is you’re basing this off a hypothetical. You’re trying to figure out what the dead person would have wanted if they were alive, which they are not. The reason they have to put it in that hypothetical phrasing is because if they said “This is what he wants. He wants us to keep going!” Of course you’d sound completely fucking insane speaking in the present tense about a dead person’s desires. 

Unless someone gave specific instructions about what to do in a will, you’re merely speculating about what a dead person would have wanted if they were alive, which they’re not. Plus, I think if we’re being honest, when you die you want people to just stop everything. You might tell everyone to keep going, but deep down you’d like it if the whole world stopped for awhile. Ultimately, it’s the living people who continue the show because they’re alive and that’s what they want to do. They can tell themselves they’re doing it for the dead person, but they were going to do the show regardless. What people neglect to realize is the dead guy is going to be dead forever. He’ll be able to see other shows. You have to understand, when you die there’s no sense of urgency on the part of the spirit. It’s not like on Earth where you have a brief window of mourning before people stop caring. You’re dead forever. It’d be much more heartwarming to a ghost to see people stop the show, mourn for hours, then do a show in their honor a week later to show they still care. Unfortunately, in our world people want to get the memorial over with ASAP so they can move the fuck on and that’s the real tragedy.

"NO! We must go on! He would have wanted me to sing my heart out!"