It's Called Being Broken

[docbrite]

Y'all know how I am -- I don't listen to any music released after 1993. But if I see one more Internet fool going on about how Amy Winehouse "chose" her "lifestyle" and "chose" to die, I'm gonna punch a motherfucker. What the fuck is wrong with people who need to proclaim this kind of shit? Do they actually feel superior because they are not sick,

Comments

[icecreamempress]

I think there are three things at work:

A) Nasty people wanting to build themselves up by tearing someone else down.

B) People who just don't understand, because when they've used ($substance) they could Just Stop, and so they assume everyone is similar. (I do that a bit with perfect pitch; I forget that not everyone can tell when their A is a sixteenth of a tone off, and assume they're being lazy.)

C) People who are absolutely terrified that this could happen to them, because they have had trouble Just Stopping (or moderating usage) of ($substance), and who therefore have to superstitiously and loudly proclaim the Complete and Utter Difference between Amy Winehouse and themselves.

(I find a lot of C going on in discussions of people who have met with all kinds of life reversals, which folks may fill in for themselves. I think the "Oh, my God, could this happen to me?" energy is soothed with the "No, this could never happen to me, because I Do Things Better and that person Did Things Wrong," and then that needs to be repeated out loud and to others for reassurance. It's a really toxic habit of mind that is oh so widespread in our society, alas.)

[icecreamempress]

Also, I think Winehouse was talented and I am terribly sorry she's dead. I would have loved to have had her around 40 years from now doing the kind of stuff Marianne Faithfull and Suzi Quatro and various other wise older women of pop are doing these days.