Tag Archives: death

Michael Jackson, Profit In Death

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One reader of my blog asked if I was going to blog on Michael Jackson’s death. I replied I would not be blogging about Michael Jackson’s death, but I may blog on what I think is disturbing about Michael Jackson’s life and death. What follows are my views and my opinions of emotional manipulation and the uncaring quest for extra pennies in the coffers of the greedy.

Michael Jackson, I am guessing did not make much money over the last decade of his life. Now that Michael Jackson has passed on, Michael’s death is a money magnet for some. Radio stations, broadcasting networks, independent media stations, bars,  the internet (ad nauseam, now myself included), and t-shirt printers, along with assorted bobble and trinket makers have cranked up to make as much money as they can from Michael Jackson’s untimely death.

thoughtsI find it is disturbing, to turn on the radio to hear, “This is hit song number xx of the late Michael Jackson’s musical career”, or something similar. Likewise to turn on the television to watch the ten o’clock news and see (and hear) the end of what for some was an emotion filled, tear producing hour. A carefully planned special on the life of a person who a few hours before was all but forgotten by most of us. Now, Michael Jackson is a golden child, potentially grossing millions in manipulated emotion driven profit.

What a great person Michael Jackson is now that he has passed on. Michael is now possibly the nearest and dearest human being we have known in our lifetime. Profit out of death. Soon if not already, there may be items changing hands for money, purported to be used by or on Michael Jackson during the last minutes in this life.

Is this what we want, greed garnished with the tinsel of remembrance and reflection; cashing in on  a man’s life who for the most part, tried to keep his private life private? It would be a noble thing for all of us not to buy into this over glossed greed machine. We should balk at others using someone’s death solely to improve their bottom line.

Soon, emotion wringing will slow down. The hype machine may re-crank the tempo with baggage and trash, squeezing a few more coins from the collective emotional purse. Later, attentions will turn to making long term profits.

I choose to remember this about Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson had his run in the sun, and the last years of his life were not what anyone would willingly choose for their end. Michael Jackson I imagine, tried to live the best life the best way he knew how to live. Michael Jackson did the best he could with the tools he was given, no one can do more.

In my opinion – considering what little I understand about Michael Jackson’s life, some people in Michael’s life could have done a better job of helping him. Helping Michael Jackson become the human being he publicly appeared to wish to become.

If my pondering holds any merit, I reckon the adult Michael Jackson really tried to be a worthwhile human being first, and an entertainer second. I find the idea of someone warping another’s attempt to live a healthy, happy, spiritually productive life, a travesty and tragedy.

Writing this, I feel I am taking a cheap shot, trying to ride ride the media blitz. It does not feel good deep down inside. It feels rather chintzy. I equate it emotionally to living in a garbage dump slum, picking through rotten, slimy, rancid filth looking for something of value.

If there is any value of my thoughts in this post, it is the idea of unabashed greed driven manipulation and exploitation, wrenching as much profit from Michael Jackson’s passing as possible before he fades to another big event. I find it distasteful being an unwilling part of it.

These are my current thoughts Michael Jackson and his passing. It is healthy and wonderful to embrace and celebrate the achievements of another at the time of their passing. Generating anything else from the passing of another, only with the bottom line in mind, is in my way of thinking, less than desirable. I believe we collectively are not so desperate for coin we willingly promote greed in death. Memorabilia has its place in death of course, but greed has none, please choose wisely.

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The last bus left, and I was not on it…..

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Well, Christmas is almost over. Rather the holiday itself, though Christmas lights and feelings will go on for a few more days. It really raced up on me this year. I have been so busy enjoying life, I was not really paying attention to those other things that matter in life.

Because I was not paying attention to my own life something snuck up on me this year. I was struck by the anger that comes from being left behind. It is kind of hard to explain, and that not really be what it is, but it feels that way to me.

My closest family members who are older than I am are either gone, or somewhere where they can not easily be called on the telephone. For the one that can be called, they may not be in a state to contribute much to any conversation any way, so it really matters little because they are in essence gone.

Another family member has the cough. Not just any cough, but THE COUGH. The kind you get when your lungs can not repair themselves from smoking any longer. The first few times I heard the cough through the phone, I asked if they had a cold. The third time, they had been to the doctor and told me a few months ago what the doctor said. Tick, tick, the clock is on for them and time is running a very mortal path.

Most of the time I accept these things as part of the cycle of life. I know my turn is coming, and all they have done is what their parents and close family did before them, and so on, back for as far as I can imagine.

Of course the spiritual side of me knows that everything is perfect just as it is. But on days like today, it is my emotions that rule the proverbial roost. I miss them today. I miss them badly. I miss them in such a way it makes me angry today that they are gone.

Once I hit the angry state, every sad and hurting relationship in my life starts floating up to the surface reminding me of other hurts and pains, and losses that have occurred over my lifetime. Why this, why that, why did this have to happen, and why didn’t this work out. Why do I feel so separated from all these people I have held so close to my heart all these years of my life? Why can’t I just let it go, and let it be?

On almost any day other than a few days either side of today, I know there are no answers or somewhere I can point to and say this is the reason, this is why, this is what I need to learn and I haven’t and that is why it continues. Except when I feel this way, almost any day does not matter. Only this moment does. So now what do I do?

I do the only things I know how to do. I feel the pain and the hurt of all the times when any relationship with someone I hold near and dear has gone south and it hurts like hell. I swim in the anger and the hurt. I wallow in the despair. I feel the anger of what feels like being shut out. I pretend it has never happened in anyone’s life but mine.

While I am feeling these things, and feeling quite sorry for myself, I also wait. I abide. I accept. Because I know there is no other recourse. Either accept or float in a pool of self pity. Eventually night falls, and bedtime arrives. I have burned so much energy letting these feelings absorb my all, I am tired. I go to bed, seethe a few more minutes, and eventually fall asleep.

If it is a special night I meet with all of them, or my guide, and and we talk and laugh about how I feel. If is a normal night, I sleep a hard sleep, and the morning comes. Along with the morning are new feelings, and new drives. Little by little as the morning flows, I am back to my normal self, and the world is a wonderful place, and didn’t I take a long ride on the pity train yesterday?

As much as I would like it to be, it is not all about me all the time. We spend an incredible amount of our lifetime playing parts in other peoples lives, and helping them learn what they need to know. Other people do the same for us, and sometimes they find pain in the pausing of a relationship too.

Better perhaps is a thought from, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. If I remember correctly, “The more it hurts, the more important they were to us…”

And life goes on

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Not living a temperature controlled life

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It is now the middle of summer, and what a glorious summer it is for me! I have been outside a lot this summer enjoying nature, walking, relaxing, fishing, a little hiking. I listen to the birds, watch the rabbits, and squirrels. It makes me feel good just to be alive.

I see many people around me, whose only clue the seasons have changed from cold to warm is the fact they turned off their heat, and turned on their air conditioning. They are in a constant cycle, or rut if you will. I bet if I ask them if they had any song birds around their house, they would be hard pressed to remember if they have seen a bird. If I ask them about rabbits or squirrels, their only response would be as it relates to their driving.

They live in this little protected cocoon. The temperature is always just so, it never rains, the wind never blows, the birds never sing except when they are trying to sleep in. These same folks if they exercise at all, exercise in the air conditioned comfort of a gym, either at home, or a club. Their only contact with the natural world they should be a part of is going from a building to their vehicle, or vehicle to a building.

I do not think that we should be outside every possible moment. I do think we should make time each day to enjoy the world around us. Not just marking time in an indoor environment where nothing ever changes. What motivates me to get outside besides the fact that I enjoy nature, is I know my death is just around the corner. I do not know when that time is, but I know that every minute of every day my death is closer than it was just a moment ago.

I want to feel the sun on my face. I want to feel the wind blow. I want to feel cold. I want to be too hot and break out into a sweat. I don’t get upset over the shower water being a little cool because I am the last one in the shower, and we have to leave soon. It is either a cool shower, or no shower, but I know that I am alive in the shower. I want to feel my fingers get stiff from cold at times. I want to get a little sunburn now and then.

Because my death is just around the corner, I want to feel all these things, and sometimes I search them out. When I was not quite as mortal as I am now, I would take some risks with my body, and perhaps my life. I want to know I am alive. Because before I know it, my body will be in a refrigerator somewhere. My body will spend a day to two there, but it won’t feel any cold, it won’t know the lights are out. My body won’t know it has been taken out of the refrigerator and placed in a coffin. My body won’t know what happens after that either.

When I look around and see people driving with their ac on, and their favorite music playing, I wonder if they realize that there will not be a big change between how they live at present, the day of their death, and the few days that follow their death?

For myself, I want to know I am alive, and I am as much a part of the natural world as I can be. I do not want to go from a temperature controlled life to a temperature controlled death. How about you? Have you given any thought to the natural world, and your part in it? Is the natural world a part of your life? I hope so, because if the natural world is not a part of your life, you are cheating yourself out of half of your life.

If you live an inside life, go outside, get hot, get cold, get wet when it rains. Know you are alive, and the world is real!

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Death, dying, awareness, and perspective

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I have a poetry book I bought when I was a teenager. In it is a collection of life stage poems by a man, Rod McKuen. It is filled with simple poems about life and how we view life as we pass through the years. I am always amazed when I am looking through my very old things, and I come across this book and read a poem or two and reflect where I am now in relation to the poems.

What I am thinking about tonight however is an age old problem we all face, our impending death. I was thinking about death the other day, as I listened to a mother with four children yelling, and telling her children how bad and stupid they are. I was thinking…what would she prefer to tell them if she knew that shortly after she loaded everyone into the car and left the parking lot a fatal accident would occur where either all four children, or herself would be killed in an accident.

Would she be saying the things she was yelling at them, or would she be saying something else to them? Occasionally, I am at a loss with people especially the yelling woman as to what they would do or say differently, if anything knowing it may be last thing they ever uttered. In some cases people are so beaten down that they would not find anything good to say to their loved ones as their parting words. Others of course are so beat up that they would want to get in one last cutting remark as their parting shot to ensure that those left behind would know for the rest of their lives how that person felt about them.

Recently I learned about a person I know who’s Mother has become suddenly terminally ill with possibly only days left of her life. The family is with her at the hospital, or as many that can be there are at the hospital. Another person I know who is not family went there today to be with the family. I suppose that is a good thing they feel that way, but I do not know who I would want around in that situation who is not immediate family.

Suddenly the time they will have with their Mother is so restricted, between the things the doctors and nurses have to do to the dying person, the times of going in and out of coma states, and the other things that go on, it seems somehow selfish to me to want to be there to take even a few seconds of family time to satisfy my own ego, or sooth my guilt, if I had any.

The way I see it though is no matter how or what we feel, it is only right to respect the needs of the family. For me, that means I would need to be asked to be there rather than just show up and try to part of the process. I think others who can actually contribute to the process somehow, feel the need to go and do whatever it is they feel they need to do.

As for the person dying, it is a one way trip with a spot for one passenger only, it is not a family event in that respect. I see it as being born but in reverse. When we were born we may have been aware of the process in another reality, but we sure are ignorant of it in this reality. Dying must be about the same way. We are cognizant of the process here, but we are completely oblivious of what is happening to us as our body dies.

No matter what my personal feelings are, they are only my feelings. I can only speak about what is true for me. I hope when the process is complete, that all those involved received whatever it is they needed from the process. Death is never pretty, yet being left behind is painful for those weep and mourn for their own pain. It is important to find a way to put into the correct perspective. Without knowing and being aware of our own pending death, we often neglect to live a proper life – such as the woman yelling at her children over nothing.

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Death and the choices we make getting there

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For the first time in over a month I feel really alive and healthy, mostly the spring weather. I had been thinking while I was feeling poorly about a few people I knew who ran their race, and have passed on. Three of them in particular stand out in my mind as unique.

What stands out about their dying is something they each said near the end of their time. I do not think they thought what they said was anything profound, but their comments have become a sort of life jacket for me. The first person had more wrong with them than right. Their doctor on one of their last visits was surprised to see them and expressed awe that they were still alive? It was not the Doctors greatest moment, and I am sure the Doctor would play that scene over if they could. When the doctor blurted this out to them, they simply said, “What am I supposed to do, fall over dead?”

The second person in my thoughts spent most of their life trying to kill themselves smoking cigarettes. After fifty plus years they got their wish. As they lay on the last bed they would ever lay on, they were very scared, and kept saying over and over as if it would make a difference, “I can’t breathe, I can’t catch my breath.” While I felt their pain, and I could see and feel their fear, a part of me couldn’t help but wonder what they thought two packs of cigarettes a day was supposed to do for them, except this end?

The third person was crippled from a stroke, and also suffered other serious health problems. One day towards the end of his time on a warm sunny July day, he asked me to take him to a lake where the young women would be out sunbathing. I complied and pulled him in his wheel chair through the deep sand as he was ogling the young girl’s working on their tans as we passed by. Eventually he had enough, and motioned we could go back to the car. I asked him why he wanted to see the young girls out sun bathing? He had a vocabulary of about one hundred words, but he made me understand that inside the crippled, tired body, was a man, and for him there was nothing in the world more beautiful on that day than a woman, or in this case a number of women out sunbathing.

I never thought much about what they had to say as their end happened. In fact I never thought about it much at all until many years later when I started to realize that I was mortal too. Two of them met their end knowing they had lived their lives as full and completely as they were able to. The third person met their end in fear, and perhaps shock in their final moments, wondering how they ever arrived at that point, and what they did to deserve it.

I choose carefully about my life, and I think everyone should choose to live life as it comes. This is our one way ticket in this life, and we need to take the ride with our eyes open, and our brains turned on. We have our one body, whether it is healthy or sickly, beautiful or plain, it is all we have. It seems apparent that we are here for a reason, and we have to see our time here through to the end.

What I learned from two of these people is life is worth living – every breath of it. Their is no tragedy, or health problem that can stop us until our bodies quit that should be allowed to keep us from wringing every joy and happiness out of our lives while we still can. From the third person I learned the value of making responsible decisions with my health. Doing something stupid, but taking no responsibility for my actions is not a life choice I make. What a shame to end life that way – terrified and incredulous, looking for something else to blame, looking for anything to blame except us, and not accepting we created this end our self, and we alone are responsible for it.

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Baby to Adult to Dying, enjoy the whole trip

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I had an interesting thought today. I was thinking about growing from a baby to a young child. I have never seen truly happy babies during this stage of life. Most days are filled with frustrations of things they can not do yet. Most of the frustration is usually because their minds start to envision things their bodies do not know how to do yet.

From thinking about babies and the frustration they go through because their wants advances their abilities, that we in the end of our lives suffer from our bodies advancing our thinking! We do not remember the frustrations we lived through from about six months to three or four years old when we wanted to do something, but we could not, because we had not developed our fine motor skills yet.

Our diets change too as the years go by. One day we are walking along and it is lunch time. We think we want pizza for lunch. Our favorite pizza, the same combination we have been eating for at least twenty years now. We order, receive, and start to eat our favorite pizza. Suddenly it does not taste as satisfying as it did just last week when we treated ourselves to a slice of pizza.

Even our thinking changes in our later years. I can not speak for women, but for men, sex is the main brain topic from waking to sleeping, and maybe during sleep too. Men go through their lives talking with women in every conceivable circumstance, yet in their minds they are usually thinking about sex with the women of interest at the moment. It is just the way men are built. Suddenly one day a man realizes he is talking with a woman and something is different! It takes a few seconds, but he realizes that for the first time in his adolescent to adult life, he sees the woman in front of him as a person, not as a possible sex object.

Some parts of getting old are not so interesting or benign. For some of us little things we took for granted such as proper body function now quit working in the most humiliating, or embarrassing ways. We become incontinent. We become a gas factory that could probably supply the Country’s methane gas needs daily. We have trouble digesting foods that we used to love, or certain foods now give us a stomach ache.
 
When we think we can not take any more, the real diseases set in. We have high blood pressure, heart trouble, eye problems, back problems, pains and aches that come and go and sometimes come and decide to stay.

Most people of course do not find this time of life too enjoyable. How can they with their bodies falling apart? I am starting to wonder though how can we not enjoy this time of ending? Our bodies have given us great service for so many years, and they are now getting tired. Our bodies are now taking control of the end of our lives, and no matter what we would like to do about it, what we can do is mostly limited to observation.
 
Our trouble is we can not just observe, we have to observe with opinion and emotion. I think we need to become more proactive and observe with happiness, and contentment, possibly even enjoyment. We may not be able to control getting old and dying, but we can control how we react to it.

We can choose how what emotions we allow into our lives as our bodies start to do what is natural after so many years of life. I hope for myself at least I can find enjoyment in the way my body shuts itself down. I can not do anything about it, and I enjoyed my body at its best, so the least I can do is enjoy the idea, it is doing what it thinks is best for me.

In essence, I can enjoy and appreciate that my body is doing the best it can with the every day more limited resources it has to work with. This seems more natural to me, and much better than being bitter and resentful that my body which served me so well, is now shutting itself down because it has no more to give.

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