Vicarious Suffering

(1) Take the case of a scientist who spends thirty-years working away at an organic compound trying to unearth its physical structure. Most of us will probably never hear of her, even if she manages to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Let us say, however, that she also happens to be someone who suffers from some serious physical/neurological disorder/disability. Film companies will immediately rush in to make movies on her, journalists to write books about her, and the halls and the bookshops will be packed with viewers and readers delighting in the suffering of a fellow human being.

(2) Some Hindu families have a deep respect for the supreme sacrifice (tyaga/sannyasa) made by the 'world-renouncers', the Acaryas, the Swamijis, and the Gurujis. I take it, however, that Hindu parents, even those who have this veneration, would be utterly distraught if their own children were to announce to them one morning that they wanted to renounce the world too. I wonder why this is so. If 'world-renunciation' is a noble move, why is it other people who have to 'renounce' the world and not people in their own family?