Michael Jackson died.
CNN and FOX news have been blasting this to the exclusion of all other news. As if nothing else in the world was happening, or everything that is usually reported was just filling time until something important happened...like the death of the King of Pop. Never mine the revolution in Iran, or the pending war with youngest-brat-child North Korea.
At first I was disgusted at the amount of emotion Michael Jackson death was causing people who didn't even know him. But then I remembered that I was saddened (granted, not to tears) by the death of Paul Newman. I tried to justify it, "Paul Newman stood for something, he was a Man." But that's an equal argument to any that could be offered up for reasons why the death of Mr. Jackson should cause such a commotion.
So are we that sad that somebody died? Not really, you see, Michael Jackson died, but so did 25,000 (source: UN World Food Programme) people from hunger alone. That happens everyday, and we don't feel sad everyday. So it can't be we are sad that somebody died, maybe we just are sad that we don't have the comfort of knowing that, if we wanted, we can wonder what exactly Michael Jackson is doing...right now!
I think it's actually part of the discovery that something is not right. Death of loved ones is crushing, but we all know it's coming. Death of stars and world leaders is unerving, everyone dies...and we don't like that. And we are right not to like it...nobody is supposed to die. That's not the way it was supposed to happen. But we like comfort, and it's comforting to have celebrities, perhaps, it is also comforting to get upset when they die.
Michael Jackson died.
So did 25,000 mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters.
Oh yeh, and Farrah Fawcett did too.
3 comments:
From a 70's/80's perspective, all the stars are falling from the sky, but the lesser light rules the night, so I'm not concerned. I'm sad for Michael. He seemed to loathe himself and his heritage. We probably helped, in some way, to feed his self-hatred. With every song we bought, we agreed with him that he was right to dislike the person he was born to be. I'm also sad for the people he hurt in his woundedness. And, like you, I think, I'm sad that the world cares less about the death of 25,000 starving people than it does about feeding its own appetite for spectacular news.
"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is."
That's an interesting perspective to hold.
AJ, Emily and I were having a conversation about that concept the other day, it was based around a song from Mewithoutyou. I think death is certianly a great sorrow, no world view can void the great weight of simply missing somebody, but I love too the notion of death being less of an end, but a step in improvements. I'll fly into the great fire of G-d and that is something!
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