He came before me but from the first time I looked into his soul, I knew that deep inside the legend were the cries, longing and dreams of a child who never used to be. We had never met in our lifetimes, but it was his voice that I heard and listened to most often. He was a gifted musical phenomenon. His sad story of stolen childhood, changing appearance, broken marriage, notable eccentricities, child abuse accusations and the isolating incendiary meganess of his stardom had made his journey even more complicated and indelibly fanciful. People called him Michael and despite spending as much time seducing the tabloids as the microphone, his undeniable talent had made him to me, an idol.He was a talented man. That impressed me, even if I have never felt singing along with his dance tracks or strutting the iconic moon-walk. Michael has a lot more to teach the world than just how to grab his crotch while performing or hanging his baby over hotel balcony. I have learned a great deal from listening to his artistry and musical career in general. His commitment to greatness at his trade, his willingness to persist despite adversity and the genius level at which he performed are things that would surely etched in our memories long after he has his untimely demise.
I have been introduced to him through Ben. Ben, just so you know was Michael's first solo hit, and was the theme of the 1972 film of the same title that tells a story of a young boy who befriends a pet rat named Ben that later on turns evil and recruits other rats to attack humans. But for me the song dictates a different meaning aside from friendship between two unlikely pair. My inner thoughts believes that Ben represented two things, the yearnings to understand why little people without a voice are always shut out, and another, a cry for help from someone who thinks that no one could ever love him, which could very well be another symbolical figure of himself. Early on, we could see how he's been championing the cause of the voiceless, the sidelined and the unlovable.
After his poignant tale of Ben, Michael reminded us about that one day in our lives, that moments when we were experiencing our first love, and losing it and how sweet it is to know that somoene is still there to wait. His early musical brilliance had assured him of tremendous fame, at the expense of a normal life. People placed him along line the statue of gods forgetting that he was just as human as all of us. For all his strange behaviors and ambiguities that have accorded his critics and followers the difficulty understanding his personality, he had to tell them that it's just human nature. That to sneak around to do normal activities like going to the store without being bothered or hitting the streets of New York and sleeping around with women or not being afraid of things that you don’t understand is only human nature. And I couldn’t agree more.
And just as we humans are all vulnerable to committing mistakes, in our hands also lies the power to rectify and undo whatever prejudices and destructions we may have done to things around us, be it living and non living. That’s the exactly the message that he had wanted to impart when he encouraged everyone to look at the man in the mirror. Indeed, it mirrored a socially relevant battlecry that if you want to make a change, it has to start from oneself. And he didn’t stop there. The progressing inhumanity of men to his fellowmen had made him lead a call to heal the world, that if we love the future of our children, it is the same love that should make this world a better place to live in.
If we don’t succeed, life could still be beautiful. In times of sorrows and pains, Michael had lifted our spirits. Whatever the object, whatever the magnitude, whatever the distance of the burden that we may be carrying, he sung to us that someone would always be there to comfort and say that "you are not alone'. More than ballad of promise of a guy to girl to never leave her side, I liked it more for its spiritual conveyance of God's eternal love for all of us. Now he's out of our lives, truly I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. H'es gone too soon.
-0 Michael Jackson, 1958 - 2009 0-
He'd be missed, everything about him, his musical talent, his eccentricities, his legacy. Say what you will about this man, ridicule him, judge him, but you gotta' admire him for his commitment, persistence and willingness to put himself "way out there." What you cannot deny is this is a man that came from nothing and became known to the entire world. His commitment to his dreams, the pursuit at becoming great at his trade and his willingness to go all the way should both be admired and modeled by anyone that wants to make their dreams come true and to make a difference in this world in our own natural ways.
So what had he made of me, nope, he never made me moon-walk or screamed with thriller. He just made me realized that no matter who you are, you can still be loved, that we are all humans vulnerable to committing mistakes and as such, everyone deserves a second chance and that you can have the power to save the world from its complete imbalance by starting within yourself whatever changes you would want to happen. Inspirations come from all forms. For this matter, and from Michael, it's through his music and his equally brilliat and tragic life. RIP.
We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
