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Clavus, I am very sorry to hear this news. Accidental deaths always disturb me very deeply, maybe because my own father died in a very accidental and preventable manner. If I read in the newspaper about a man getting run over on his way home from work, it makes me cry. I hate it when things like this are so entirely preventable.
And I see from reading this whole thread that there is no use arguing with Guccilvr. I am terribly sorry that you feel that way about death, though I understand from my job that people believe what they need to believe. Feel free to correct me, but I get the feeling that you went through a very painful death of someone you loved deeply, and after that point it sort of cauterized your wound into something you don't want to probe and feel anymore... hence fatalism is easier than dealing with the actuality of death. (I am probably totally reading too much into this, but I have seen similar reactions in other people I know and can only go off "my experience" of what I observed in them.)
Socially and culturally, belief in fatalism seems to occur the most often when people have been stripped of any reason to believe that they have control or power in their lives, usually because of economic reasons or a traumatic event that disturbed them very deeply. Either that or they're Buddhist (believing that everything is impermanent, including life). I saw this quite clearly in Bangkok, when entire families (4-5+ people) would go riding by on tiny scooters at 40, 50 miles an hour... no helmets, no leather pants, nothing. Their lack of care for themselves was attributed to the factors I described above. You could say that they were not afraid of death, but I'd have to say that 1) they didn't have the resources to be more protected (car or even helmets) or even to sit around and debate about what "fatalism" means 2) their lack of power due to poverty and tragedy disconnected them from the reality that loss and sorrow are preventable, and 3) this material and political conditions justified their ideology of fatalism.
On seatbelts: I cannot recall ever having NOT worn one, going all the way back to childhood. It becomes part of my body when I am driving... I don't think about it, never really have. I don't drive unless all people in the car are belted... yes, I care about them, but I also don't want them being projectiles, either.
A seatbelt stopped me from either being killed or seriously disabled when I was 15 and riding in the back of a VW Rabbit on the way home from cross-country practice. I got a minor concussion from whiplash and cuts on my body from the force of the seatbelt, but you can imagine how grateful I was for those cuts.
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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran
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