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is it strange that—
Apr. 2nd, 2018 05:43 pm—when a famous person dies, i don't end to get tremendously emotional or sad.
not in a conventional sense, at least. i was in a car full of 80's music fans when Michael Jackson died, and i remember how everyone started howling in anguish, someone cried, a few started sharing distraught stories about their favorite songs—i didn't "get" it, but i very politely bobbed my head along to the tenth replay of "Thriller" as we rode along.
that one's not so surprising. i've never been fond of 80's music. that death wasn't really going to touch me.
but, ever since Ursula Le Guin's passing—an author i admired so much, her fiction and her poetry and her nonfiction all—it's strange, when i think of her death, i don't feel sad, exactly. the lady had a good, long life. i think she died as well as anyone could hope for. and she left a wonderful legacy.
but instead i feel a sharp flare of fierce, melancholic resolution.
i feel it, for instance, when i log onto her website to browse her blog—i'd often check on it when she was alive, not because she would do any hot-take think-piece-y things, not directly, but because she always seemed to say something enormously reassuring just when i was at my most distressed, or say something invigorating when i was getting too comfortable. she had a keen mind and keen insights, fresh ways of seeing the world that i couldn't come around to myself.
but now i browse to her website and i remember: she's not around. and i think: she's not around, and she put all this fucking work into making all these beautiful things and telling these important stories burning in her soul and striving to make the world a better place, so—alright, are we better? because we have to be better.
those keen insights, the ones i couldn't come to myself? i've got to work on seeing the world in new ways, now, and tell people about it. i won't be able to log onto her blog anymore to get the thing i crave. and i'm not the only one who needed that. people still need that.
it's not unlike what i felt after my grandfather's passing. after he died i thought a lot about what makes a good person: a moral person, a giving person, a courageous person. and i put a lot of thought into action. and i do think i've become a better person since then. (i became worse, first. sometimes that happens. but i'm better now. still imperfect, still not as good as he was, but—i know what i'm aiming for.)
i imagine when someone very close to me passes it will hurt. i'm not unfeeling. but i wouldn't be surprised if i always feel something of this—they are gone, so now it's up to me to make the world they wanted, and because i loved them i want to make that world too.
not in a conventional sense, at least. i was in a car full of 80's music fans when Michael Jackson died, and i remember how everyone started howling in anguish, someone cried, a few started sharing distraught stories about their favorite songs—i didn't "get" it, but i very politely bobbed my head along to the tenth replay of "Thriller" as we rode along.
that one's not so surprising. i've never been fond of 80's music. that death wasn't really going to touch me.
but, ever since Ursula Le Guin's passing—an author i admired so much, her fiction and her poetry and her nonfiction all—it's strange, when i think of her death, i don't feel sad, exactly. the lady had a good, long life. i think she died as well as anyone could hope for. and she left a wonderful legacy.
but instead i feel a sharp flare of fierce, melancholic resolution.
i feel it, for instance, when i log onto her website to browse her blog—i'd often check on it when she was alive, not because she would do any hot-take think-piece-y things, not directly, but because she always seemed to say something enormously reassuring just when i was at my most distressed, or say something invigorating when i was getting too comfortable. she had a keen mind and keen insights, fresh ways of seeing the world that i couldn't come around to myself.
but now i browse to her website and i remember: she's not around. and i think: she's not around, and she put all this fucking work into making all these beautiful things and telling these important stories burning in her soul and striving to make the world a better place, so—alright, are we better? because we have to be better.
those keen insights, the ones i couldn't come to myself? i've got to work on seeing the world in new ways, now, and tell people about it. i won't be able to log onto her blog anymore to get the thing i crave. and i'm not the only one who needed that. people still need that.
it's not unlike what i felt after my grandfather's passing. after he died i thought a lot about what makes a good person: a moral person, a giving person, a courageous person. and i put a lot of thought into action. and i do think i've become a better person since then. (i became worse, first. sometimes that happens. but i'm better now. still imperfect, still not as good as he was, but—i know what i'm aiming for.)
i imagine when someone very close to me passes it will hurt. i'm not unfeeling. but i wouldn't be surprised if i always feel something of this—they are gone, so now it's up to me to make the world they wanted, and because i loved them i want to make that world too.
