Why In Memorium?
As many of my fellow "successful" creatives do, but don't often admit, I spend a portion of my day working a "normal" job, with people who, while appreciative of the creative arts, do not share my compulsion to be professional creatives themselves, which is understandable. However, with the recent death of David Bowie, I've found the not inconsiderable divide between us a lot more than usual, the common question, to the point of frustration, being why am I so personally effected by the death of a person I didn't know? Did I not know about all the soldiers dying in wars, or the father who killed his own children, isn't that more sad?
Of course there are those who are rattled by the news of the great man's passing, fans and avid musicals who grieve for a future folio that will never be. But among my creative colleagues, and to a degree in myself, I'm noticing a level of grief that equates to, if not approximates, the level of grief one would feel over the loss of a friend. I feel I can explain to those who don't understand, on behalf of those who deeply do.
We're not mourning the loss of a man. We didn't know the man. It has nothing to do with whether we know him, or if he'd turn us away or invite us in or tea and biscuits were we to knock on his door, that's irrelevant. What might be similar is the connection and gratitude my supervisor feels when she looks at a photograph of a soldier. She feels they died fighting for her freedom. I see only someone who went overseas to shoot someone, and got shot themselves. Likewise, when it comes to sporting heroes and so on, the viewing and fandom competitive sport was the elitist inclination of those who cast us creatives out, thus our bitterness and lack of interest in them.
That's where it comes from; being cast out. It's one of the most obvious examples of the cruelty of life; when someone chooses to develop their creative mind from an early age, they develop a great emotional investment in stories. Stories are human beings, every single one of us is a story, and so our devotion and love filters into all of humanity. Even animals, any soul. The more our creative skills develop, the more we see and so the more we care about the world and everything in it. The cruelty is much the same as that girl or boy you devote yourself far too much to as a romantic interest; you are invariably cast out. It is your love for all things sentient that causes you to be an unacceptable social element in the great masses of human life. We become lonely, insular and melancholy people, because the life we love so much is barring us. We don't get to enjoy romances the way everyone else does, if at all. We don't get to play with friends like everyone else. We're outsiders. Not because we don't like everyone, but because we feel and care for them too much.
Enter the truly great artist. Music, literature, painting and film can all reach us, and make us feel connected to that life which we stand on the outside of. They plug us back in to the norm, and by doing so make us feel like our dreams of creating all our lives, like yours of being the best accountant or CEO or chef are not wild fantasies but accessible and attainable prophecies, we feel like our fantasies are possible too. Because of them giving what they do to the great annuls of creativity expressed throughout human existence. There are many thousands of such creatives, but David Bowie was truly one who stood out.
His voice, his words and his sounds penetrated and validated more than just other outsiders, and by that I mean creatives as well as homosexuals, transgenders, those considered not physically fit or pretty enough for the acceptance of the crowds, but touched everyone, in some way. Beyond fandom, he made it clear that we all are acceptable, we are all possible, we can all be part of something, if not the general definition of life. That does more than just make people happy; that saves lives. The freedom and sense of liberty given to outsiders by the work of him and his like is far greater and far more tangible and immediate than anything that can be traded for death by bombs or guns. It's societal freedom, and it can save lives.
So it's not a skinny, talented Englishman we're mourning, it's what he stood out for, simply by being himself. The specter of him, the message. Yes, it will live forever. But we are entitled to feel the loss and rejoice in the gift of the man who issued it.
Of course there are those who are rattled by the news of the great man's passing, fans and avid musicals who grieve for a future folio that will never be. But among my creative colleagues, and to a degree in myself, I'm noticing a level of grief that equates to, if not approximates, the level of grief one would feel over the loss of a friend. I feel I can explain to those who don't understand, on behalf of those who deeply do.
We're not mourning the loss of a man. We didn't know the man. It has nothing to do with whether we know him, or if he'd turn us away or invite us in or tea and biscuits were we to knock on his door, that's irrelevant. What might be similar is the connection and gratitude my supervisor feels when she looks at a photograph of a soldier. She feels they died fighting for her freedom. I see only someone who went overseas to shoot someone, and got shot themselves. Likewise, when it comes to sporting heroes and so on, the viewing and fandom competitive sport was the elitist inclination of those who cast us creatives out, thus our bitterness and lack of interest in them.
That's where it comes from; being cast out. It's one of the most obvious examples of the cruelty of life; when someone chooses to develop their creative mind from an early age, they develop a great emotional investment in stories. Stories are human beings, every single one of us is a story, and so our devotion and love filters into all of humanity. Even animals, any soul. The more our creative skills develop, the more we see and so the more we care about the world and everything in it. The cruelty is much the same as that girl or boy you devote yourself far too much to as a romantic interest; you are invariably cast out. It is your love for all things sentient that causes you to be an unacceptable social element in the great masses of human life. We become lonely, insular and melancholy people, because the life we love so much is barring us. We don't get to enjoy romances the way everyone else does, if at all. We don't get to play with friends like everyone else. We're outsiders. Not because we don't like everyone, but because we feel and care for them too much.
Enter the truly great artist. Music, literature, painting and film can all reach us, and make us feel connected to that life which we stand on the outside of. They plug us back in to the norm, and by doing so make us feel like our dreams of creating all our lives, like yours of being the best accountant or CEO or chef are not wild fantasies but accessible and attainable prophecies, we feel like our fantasies are possible too. Because of them giving what they do to the great annuls of creativity expressed throughout human existence. There are many thousands of such creatives, but David Bowie was truly one who stood out.
His voice, his words and his sounds penetrated and validated more than just other outsiders, and by that I mean creatives as well as homosexuals, transgenders, those considered not physically fit or pretty enough for the acceptance of the crowds, but touched everyone, in some way. Beyond fandom, he made it clear that we all are acceptable, we are all possible, we can all be part of something, if not the general definition of life. That does more than just make people happy; that saves lives. The freedom and sense of liberty given to outsiders by the work of him and his like is far greater and far more tangible and immediate than anything that can be traded for death by bombs or guns. It's societal freedom, and it can save lives.
So it's not a skinny, talented Englishman we're mourning, it's what he stood out for, simply by being himself. The specter of him, the message. Yes, it will live forever. But we are entitled to feel the loss and rejoice in the gift of the man who issued it.
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