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Originally Posted by aggie  well, if you truly aren't affected by the change he had on the music, dance, video world or his true desire for love and understanding in the world...than the passing of someone like that would not concern you.... |
But the changes he brought into being were all in the past tense. As an inspired creator, he crashed back to earth over a decade ago, and never rose back up--instead, he just kept going down. He surrounded himself with yes-men and enablers who fed both his drug addiction and his narcissistic fantasies about himself. He banished people who had the temerity to say, "Uh, Mike? This is a really
bad idea." And the saddest part of that is that those people were the ones who genuinely cared about him.
The Michael Jackson people are mourning, who was such a brilliant, inspired, groundbreaking performer? He died a long time ago. The Michael Jackson who died a couple of days ago was a sad, wasted wreck--he was a shadow of his former self. He'd gone from being a thing of wonder to the most tawdry, degraded freak show. And you can blame the press and the public, or claim that the world was not good enough for the likes of Michael Jackson, but Jackson took an active role in his own undoing. He threw himself into it headfirst.
Jackson was brilliant--
at one time. And yes, the possibility always existed that he could rise up and be brilliant again. But in order to do that? He would have had to undergo a profound internal change. He would have had to tear down all the ego structures he'd built around himself, kick out all the sycophants and yes-men, overcome his addictions, and admit he'd gone off the rails. Given the enormity of that task, it's no surprise he didn't. Had he done it, it would have been the most astonishing, superhuman feat of his entire life.
I was sad to hear he'd died, but not surprised. And to be honest, I can't get too torn up about it--I think death for him, at this point, was a mercy, an end to enormous suffering.