[Freedjome]

What a strange dichotomy is being set up ... people feel what they feel; how they express it is how they express it.

If a stranger's life has intersected with our own private life at some significant point, whether through the media or whatever, then is it realistic for us to feel it when they die.

Public figures I have felt that way about include Dag Hammarskjold, Albert Schweitzer and Faith Bandler. Not because they did anything special for me but because the way they lived their lives / led, seemed to me to be encouraging at times that I needed that encouragement ... and when they died the spirit that their lives illuminated seemed diminished.

Each was human / flawed as well as marvelous ... I'm happy to say I felt sad when I heard of their deaths .. as I will when Nelson Mandela dies, for example.