“Everything ends, and it’s always sad. But everything begins again too, and that’s… always happy”
My former “best friend” excoriated me for being sad that Mr Rogers died. This is one of the reasons why not friends any longer: he lacks human empathy.
My old coworkers also made fun of me for being sad when Lemmy Kilmister died, and it’s just always bad to make fun of someone’s sadness.
Both of these men were heroes to me for different reasons; one taught me empathy and compassion and not to be afraid of my feelings, the other gave me music that helped me cope through hard complicated times in my youth. They were important to me.
Being made fun of for that was really shitty and I’m still mad about it.
I feel you, friend.
Even if you don’t agree or understand why someone is sad, making fun of it is always a dick move. Within reason.
We need so many more Fred Rogers’s in this world
He truly was. I don’t know that anyone had more respect for children’s feelings and their capacity to understand, if only you talk to them at their own level.
I didn’t fully appreciate him as a child. He truly was a gift to humanity.
If one had been just a tad bit older or the other just a tad bit younger, imagine a world where Mr Rogers married and procreated with Dolly Parton.
We wouldn’t have got the TV show and Dolly wouldn’t have written as many great songs about jerks.
One of my all-time favorite Internet comments. Long but worth the read.
Thank you for posting this.
A reminder that multiple Faux ‘News’ hosts called Mr. Rogers “an evil, evil man”.
let’s not just reference it and move on.
let’s show them doing it.
and let’s explore what it is they were saying specifically. they believe that Mr. Rogers was a ‘evil, evil, man’, because he told young kids ‘everyone is special’.
that’s what these evil, evil, people took issue with. a person on public television, not motivated by stacks of money, told some young kids they were worth something.
i also want to point out that this is the man they called evil. a man who went before one of the most powerful governments in the world, and talked about what was important to him.
in and of itself that’s not that unusual. people do it all the time. what made this time different is what was important to that person, and more specifically why it should be important to all of us.
They really failed to be the people Mr. Rogers knew they could be.
I don’t think I was actually conscious during my Mr. Rogers phase some time in the 80s, but eventually I woke up (at least once) and I feel like he may be partly responsible for that.
Mr Rogers was a good man. I wish we had someone to continue what he wanted to children to learn. We really need more empathy.
