Life - what's it all about at the end?

I wonder how you felt when you heard that the designer Alexander Mc Queen had died http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8511115.stm? Or how about the Georgian luger http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/vancouver_2010/luge/8513595.stm?

And how did you feel when you heard that 200,000 people had died in Haiti http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8524842.stm?

If you were like me you would have felt more sorrow for one of the first people mentioned than the second.

Why is that?

I think it's strange.

I mean when I heard that the Georgian luger had died I was genuinely upset. I heard just as I was going to sleep one evening and it was awful news.

But how did I feel when I heard that 200,000 people had died in Haiti? Did I feel 200,000 times the sorrow? Did you?

Why not?

Is one life worth more than 200,000?

Perhaps the sheer scale of the number of deaths makes it difficult to comprehend.

Or maybe it is the celebrity culture - we feel we know the one person who dies and so are personally sorry in a way in which we cannot be for 200,000?

I don't know. But it's worth considering.

Adios