Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me

[vovat]

I've seen people say things about celebrities dying in threes, but which three are we counting at this point? Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson dying the same day is an eerie coincidence (although it would have been more so if the two of them had anything to do with each other), but did a third celebrity die that day? People want to make it Ed McMahon, but he died two days earlier, so I'm not sure why he would count as part of the trio. This site mentions that Sky Saxon of the Seeds died on the same day as Farrah and Michael, but I know I hadn't heard of the guy while he was still alive. I did know about Billy Mays, but I'm not sure how widely he'd be considered a celebrity, and his death was three days later anyway. So, as creepy and disturbing as it is to see so many famous people dying, I don't think there's any pattern in it.

I've also seen complaints about how people talking about dead celebrities is taking the place of real news. I guess my question there is who defines "real news." I guess they mean stuff like who won the football game and whether any morons are sending in teabags with their tax returns, right? I don't know; I also get annoyed when the same story is covered for days on end, but I think what's important is a subjective thing. That said, I think news is supposed to be about things that happened, so making guesses about what's going to happen to Jackson's estate doesn't really count. On the other hand, it's not like discussions of, say, the war in Iraq DON'T include a lot of guesswork. In a world as rich and event-filled as ours, do the media really need to cover the same topics over and over again? Also worth noting (and it has been many times, but I'm still going to reiterate it) is how the prevailing attitude of not speaking ill of the dead is definitely coming out with Michael, whom no one seemed to mind speaking ill of in the recent past. I guess death has a tendency to make us think of what we liked about a person, rather than what we thought was creepy.

So, in conclusion, death sucks. Actually, that's not a conclusion at all, but it's still true. Yeah, I know it relieves some people of their pain (well, unless you believe in eternal torment in the afterlife), and some deaths could be argued to be no big loss to the world, but I think these are the exceptions. It's frightening to think how easy it is for the life of someone you know to just end. And I don't believe in an afterlife; I consider death to be the end of the existence of the individual person. As I've said before, even if there IS such a thing as a soul, why would it carry on the personality of its last host? Isn't that a product of the brain, which is part of what stops functioning when you die? Is that a bleak idea? Well, kind of. I know the prospect of consciousness simply ceasing is rather disturbing. But isn't it even bleaker to never enjoy the life that you KNOW exists in hopes of having it better in one that might or might not exist?

Comments

[suegypt.livejournal.com]

Sky Saxon died? Aw, he was cool. The Seeds were cool.

And yeah, Death sucks, unless it's the best alternative to what Life has become.

Maybe your soul goes on to something else, not a body, but something totally unimaginable.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Your title is from possibly my favorite poem ever. Okay, my favorite Serious Academic Type poem ever.

I see where the news vs not-news is coming from -- there is STILL a picture of Michael Jackson on the Comcast home page this morning (but the Comcast "news" page is ALWAYS Not Very)-- and it bugs me when people die and suddenly everyone's all dramatic about how wonderful they are, especially if this is different than how they used to be looked at (like Jackson, for one sort of example; for another sort, when George Harrison died, I got annoyed when people seemed to be all focused on "he was a BEATLE" like a sort of generic thing, instead of, you know, he was GEORGE HARRISON and awesome in and of himself and totally unappreciated by all those crazy people beforethen). But it IS news when a public figure dies, and it should be REPORTED, you know, so people don't try to book them for events and wind up embarrassed. It just doesn't need to be overlabored.

I don't believe the soul is a self-contained ghost type thing, but I believe it does go on. Just in a way we can't understand until we're there. I always say I want to be the color cerulean after I die. Like, actually BE THE COLOR, not be colored the color. Who knows? It's possible.

I want to be called Loretta

[suegypt.livejournal.com]

If you become the color cerulean after you die, people like me will take great pleasure at just looking at you, you will give pleasure, just by being cerulean. I think i want to be the musical note A...

Re: I want to be called Loretta

[vovat.livejournal.com]

But don't the color cerulean and the musical note A already exist? I want to contribute something new. Maybe I'll be the color zornplat.

Re: I want to be called Loretta

[suegypt.livejournal.com]

The color zornplat already exists (unless you will also be changing human perception of the visible spectrum upon your passing), it just hasn't been singled out and named zornplat. I think it's a darker, greener version of baby-shit brown.

Re: I want to be called Loretta

[suegypt.livejournal.com]

Actually, what color would an angry map be?

Re: I want to be called Loretta

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I feel that there should be a punchline to this, but I can't figure out what it would be.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think there are some approved ways to mourn a celebrity, and they generally emphasize whatever good thing the person was most famous for. Whenever people play Michael's songs and videos, they're pretty much always from the eighties or earlier.