(no subject)
Dude I watched Brokeback Mountain yesterday. I hate it when celebrities die, because you kind of know them, at several hundred layers away. But then on the other hand, that's how well you know most people.
When anybody dies, the people that have an opinion about it tend to make it all about them. That makes sense: your feelings only flow in one direction, always. If it's your wife or some stupid druggie celebrity, your feelings only ever flow in one direction. So it makes sense to talk about yourself, when somebody else dies: they're not there to talk about themselves, but it still needs to be talked about, so you talk about your feelings. That's all that's left, because it's all that was there in the first place.
I think the reason nobody knows how to react when celebrities die is because of the opposite direction: they didn't know you. So they wouldn't care if you cared if they died. Except ... that's still all about you, and they're still dead. It's still fucked up, and you still have feelings going in the direction of the event.
I think I'm done feeling guilty for feeling bad when celebrities die, even when it's celebrities I don't really care about one way or the other. He was talented, super young, he was the Joker; he was Australian, he was fucked up and now he's dead. And those four little words I hate so much, in this type of situation: "Found in the nude." Never appreciated, never necessary. And that actually is sad, regardless of whether or not he knew who you were in return.If you know me very well at all, you probably know that I was pretty much overjoyed when my mom died. But that didn't make it any easier to watch my brothers, who actually loved her, or my dad, who desperately needs to be taken care of.
Why do we feel so guilty even thinking about dead people? To me, the number one feeling surrounding death is that: just shame, and guilt. Preemptive guilt, for thinking you matter in the vastness of somebody else's world ending; for some future moment when you'll use that moment to talk about yourself. For the moment coming when you try to talk about what that person meant to you, and you imagine somebody hearing you and saying, quietly or silently even, that you didn't even know them.And then the celebrity thing. Ellen said once about how whenever people meet her, they want a hug, and that makes sense, because she's in their living room for an hour every day, and they think of her as a friend.
I know that because of my job, and the balls-out raw and drunken way I tend to do my job, I often come across to strangers as somebody very vulnerable, and caring, and compassionate, and rigid, and pious, and generous. And that is actually how I try to be, for the most part, but the unfiltered reality is a lot less comforting, and a lot more selfish. So at the times where I meet readers, I try to compose my behavior to be that version of myself, because it is WAY better than I actually am. I am a much better person on the screen, in this person's living room, than I am in real life.
But the fact remains that I spend a lot of time in these persons' living rooms, telling them stories and secrets about myself that I don't really share with people in general life. These strangers know more about me -- my passions, and my secrets, and my loves and hates, and my hopes and dreams -- than my actual friends probably do, because it's rare that you talk about that stuff, if you live in mortal fear of Things Getting Weird.My birth mother locked herself in a room for three days when River Phoenix died. Her second or third husband Mike did the same thing when Selena died. Neither of them could explain it. I can't explain it now. Any attempt at explanation just keeps you from being present, I guess.I am not a professional actor, but I don't think it's a far stretch to say that there are probably parts of actors that we, out here in the living room, are more prepared or qualified to see, and to love, than the actor's real-life friends and lovers: they are composing their behavior to create a specific kind of person. They are creating the image of a reality, with feelings and hopes and fears and dreams, and all those things come from somewhere inside them, in an organic or believable way, or else they would not have been given the role, if the director is good. So you're seeing certain filtered truths about a person, through the screen, just like when you read somebody's words. Storytellers, whether they're writers or actors or artists or directors, make a habit of showing us their secrets because they don't know us, and don't care about the judgments that they make.
So when a celebrity dies, I think it's okay to be sad. I think it's good to mourn: it's not just the person that you helped them create, in your living room, but it's also all the people they were going to help you create, in the future. When writers die, worlds collapse. But when actors die, it's genocide: an entire nation of secrets and hopes and fears and dreams, an infinity of men that he could have spent his life showing us, in little glimpses and moments. And that actually does suck, no matter how insecure and selfish it makes you feel to admit it.
When anybody dies, the people that have an opinion about it tend to make it all about them. That makes sense: your feelings only flow in one direction, always. If it's your wife or some stupid druggie celebrity, your feelings only ever flow in one direction. So it makes sense to talk about yourself, when somebody else dies: they're not there to talk about themselves, but it still needs to be talked about, so you talk about your feelings. That's all that's left, because it's all that was there in the first place.
I think the reason nobody knows how to react when celebrities die is because of the opposite direction: they didn't know you. So they wouldn't care if you cared if they died. Except ... that's still all about you, and they're still dead. It's still fucked up, and you still have feelings going in the direction of the event.
I think I'm done feeling guilty for feeling bad when celebrities die, even when it's celebrities I don't really care about one way or the other. He was talented, super young, he was the Joker; he was Australian, he was fucked up and now he's dead. And those four little words I hate so much, in this type of situation: "Found in the nude." Never appreciated, never necessary. And that actually is sad, regardless of whether or not he knew who you were in return.If you know me very well at all, you probably know that I was pretty much overjoyed when my mom died. But that didn't make it any easier to watch my brothers, who actually loved her, or my dad, who desperately needs to be taken care of.
Why do we feel so guilty even thinking about dead people? To me, the number one feeling surrounding death is that: just shame, and guilt. Preemptive guilt, for thinking you matter in the vastness of somebody else's world ending; for some future moment when you'll use that moment to talk about yourself. For the moment coming when you try to talk about what that person meant to you, and you imagine somebody hearing you and saying, quietly or silently even, that you didn't even know them.And then the celebrity thing. Ellen said once about how whenever people meet her, they want a hug, and that makes sense, because she's in their living room for an hour every day, and they think of her as a friend.
I know that because of my job, and the balls-out raw and drunken way I tend to do my job, I often come across to strangers as somebody very vulnerable, and caring, and compassionate, and rigid, and pious, and generous. And that is actually how I try to be, for the most part, but the unfiltered reality is a lot less comforting, and a lot more selfish. So at the times where I meet readers, I try to compose my behavior to be that version of myself, because it is WAY better than I actually am. I am a much better person on the screen, in this person's living room, than I am in real life.
But the fact remains that I spend a lot of time in these persons' living rooms, telling them stories and secrets about myself that I don't really share with people in general life. These strangers know more about me -- my passions, and my secrets, and my loves and hates, and my hopes and dreams -- than my actual friends probably do, because it's rare that you talk about that stuff, if you live in mortal fear of Things Getting Weird.My birth mother locked herself in a room for three days when River Phoenix died. Her second or third husband Mike did the same thing when Selena died. Neither of them could explain it. I can't explain it now. Any attempt at explanation just keeps you from being present, I guess.I am not a professional actor, but I don't think it's a far stretch to say that there are probably parts of actors that we, out here in the living room, are more prepared or qualified to see, and to love, than the actor's real-life friends and lovers: they are composing their behavior to create a specific kind of person. They are creating the image of a reality, with feelings and hopes and fears and dreams, and all those things come from somewhere inside them, in an organic or believable way, or else they would not have been given the role, if the director is good. So you're seeing certain filtered truths about a person, through the screen, just like when you read somebody's words. Storytellers, whether they're writers or actors or artists or directors, make a habit of showing us their secrets because they don't know us, and don't care about the judgments that they make.
So when a celebrity dies, I think it's okay to be sad. I think it's good to mourn: it's not just the person that you helped them create, in your living room, but it's also all the people they were going to help you create, in the future. When writers die, worlds collapse. But when actors die, it's genocide: an entire nation of secrets and hopes and fears and dreams, an infinity of men that he could have spent his life showing us, in little glimpses and moments. And that actually does suck, no matter how insecure and selfish it makes you feel to admit it.