It was so sudden and just hit me out of the blue. When I read the news this morning online I was out of words though I wanted to express what a great artist he was. Someone wrote"Cardiac Arrest during show at O2 arena would have been more dramatic, befitting jacko." and that really hurt me. Why are people so heartless and prejudiced? Can't they simply look at Jackson the performer and leave out the rest?I just want to share what little or more I know and understand about creativity and artists.
Artists are these very sensitive set of people who have extreme emotions.
That is why when a normal man looks at a square, he sees four equal sides and and four equal angles joined at 90 degrees to form a regular quadrilateral shape. But show the same to an artist and he sees a stage, an ice cube, a chess board, a table,a book, a photograph, even a square watermelon(honest, its possible, Google "square watermelons"). The list is endless, the difference between the engineer and the artist is only their imagination.
I also believe that only when this imagination hits a new frontier that it transforms into creativity. And this extreme creativity gets recognition only when it goes out of boundaries, because only then, they can get singled out from the others. And to out-perform other such performing, creative,artistic geniuses is something only a mad person can do. Yup, you got me, I heard that there is only a thin line between a genius and a mad man.
That brings me back to the equation, of our common man who is standing on the first rung of this creative ladder and trying to laugh at the creative genius who is standing on top of the hill, a headliner, all alone. That also brings me to the question why are artists so lonely up there? Afterall they have toiled for all their life(being singled out).Jackson would've competed with others as he found recluse in the admiration, adulation and encouragement (the by-products of success). And believe me he would've worked harder to keep getting more and more like an addict. He was also a perfectionist, you can see it in his music videos and songs.
It is an awfully lonely and insecure place to be above everyone else because you don't know why people are being nice to you, you assume it is probably the money and the fame. You lose your sense of judgement, you are in for many disappointments when you realize that your mother or brother is with you because you are their walking, talking bank. That's devastating. You feel insecure and get scared that you are being manipulated by everyone around you with sweetness for money??He probably didn't trust all the women too and treasured his own company.
I can fathom the insecurities which Jackson probably went through, all the rifts and pain, all the media glare which he would've liked in the beginning, but hated or couldn't do anything about later on.... He's just not a whacko jacko, he was a legend, who will probably live on...as long as music and entertainment live.
