Cheers, the worst way to die, how being a good person is like being a good player

Sunday 7/26/26

There's an episode of Cheers where the gang is discussing the worst way to die. I referenced this in an op-ed somewhere. Frasier eventually pipes in and says, "Dying alone, knowing that you've never been loved," thinking he has the clincher, and troubled by the knowledge of it.

The others laugh at him because they've been tossing stuff out there like sliding down a greased razor banister. I think about this joke--for it is a joke, but, like the the best jokes, one that contains deep truth--at some point in every day of my life, because I know that this is almost certainly going to be how I die.

There's so much love in my work, though. A body of work of pure love. It is love. It's love to be had for anyone who wants it.

Just like you could also say that every heart is different, no matter if they sound alike, because of how that heart is shared.

My focus and effort has been bad. I either need to pick one thing to do or, if I'm going to do multiple things, let alone many, I need to be going constantly. No stopping after ten hours, and going harder during those first ten hours. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep going round and round the peripheries of everything.

The first season of Cheers is close to perfect. Obviously, the episode referenced above wasn't from that first season. I think that first season is art. Art isn't an undertaking; to me, it means a level. Something reaches the level at which it can be called art. I'm very precise and careful with that word, as I am with all words. I use none of them lightly. Even when I am expressing something light.

One of the many projects/books I'm alluding to with my going round and round the peripheries of the combined lot of them all is a book on that first season of Cheers, which takes place entirely in the bar, the only season of the show regarding which that is true.

People often think that being a good person is a matter of what I'll call dispositional temperament. Not wishing ill will on others generally. But its isn't. Being a good person is somewhat similar to being a good player in a sport. If you're just out there, cruising around the ice in hockey, not creating opportunities for the team, not actively doing your bit, failing to do your part in thwarting the opposition, you aren't a good player. A good player sticks their nose in there. Makes things happen.

Same with a good person. They seek out. They do of their own accord, without having to be forced, reminded. It isn't about your dispositional temperament. It's about what you put into active service. It's the spaces you seek to fill. The bridges you try to make. The excursions out, rather than the remaining in place. It's "What can I do?" and then doing it. It's in the brainstorming of that "What can I do?" It's making a point to think about others with that motivation coming from within. It isn't statuary. It's movement.

In our hockey metaphor, it's being a player who makes things happen all over the ice, or tries to in the best way possible, shift in, shift out, game in, game out, season in, season out.

Not playing isn't being a good player. Regardless of whatever you might be thinking about the team or how well you like it.