My Thoughts on Michael Jackson's Death

It has been about a week since Michael Jackson's untimely death. I thought that I would be able to just brush it all aside and move on. But there seems to be this collective mourning happening that is hard to ignore. Not to mention the songs that keep playing over and over in my head all week. I think it's because everyone I pass on the street is also humming Michael Jackson songs.

The day that Michael Jackson passed was quite a phenomenon. I was sitting at my desk checking my twitter page when I saw his name start to pop up in more then one twitter trending topic. No trending topic ever gets that many spots. This was four hours after Farrah Fawcett's name had come up announcing that she had passed away. That didn't surprise me as I had heard she was battling with cancer.

So of course, I clicked on his name and there was so much mass confusion happening about whether or not he had passed or not. After about an hour it was finally confirmed, Michael had indeed passed. So I went on with my work not really feeling much of anything one way or the other about his death. When I got home, there was this urge to turn on the TV and see what the mainstream media had to say. WOW! I had not idea that the world was so impacted by this man. It was insane.

I listened to Michael Jackson back in the 80's and then I moved on. Honestly the past few years I really had lost respect for him. I had only seen pictures of him that were unrecognizable, heard about some kind of lawsuit for child molestation, most recently that he was in financial trouble so he decided to go on tour again. I honestly could care less about about Michael Jackson but could appreciate his early music.

A part of me actually became angry that he was getting so much attention. I thought back to 2 months ago when my grandfather passed and how no one outside our family of about 20 people even noticed or seemed to care. It made me realize that we all come into this world, play our part, and leave. Some of us with a bang and some just quietly without a trace. Michael Jackson left with a huge legacy behind him much life Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. They will forever live on in the collective memory of humankind. My grandfather however will live on in the memory of a few.

I went to a gathering the day after Michael's death and of course it was impossible for us all to not talk about what his death meant to us. It turns out that he had touched all of our lives in some way or another. It was a common bond we all shared. As we spoke about his death, I warmed up and actually felt a little sad.

One discussion that came up that really stuck with me this past week was the concept that there is a shift happening right now in our culture. It used to be that there were only a few celebrities and people like Michael Jackson that actually made themselves into a household brand. However, today anyone can build a personal brand. There aren't as many people like MJ who are getting all of our attention. Our attention is being more spread and we are conecting more with our peers. (Or at least we hope.)

We talked about how there had been so much energy for so long directed towards Michael Jackson and that with his death last week it came to a huge climax. That energy burst and is now being released to transform into something else. Maybe in the destiny of humankind MJ did us a favour. Maybe he died an untimely death so that we could release that pent up energy. It will be interesting to see what comes out of that energy. If there is no Michael Jackson in our lives anymore where will we as a collecive put that energy?

I felt the same with my grandfathers death. He lived a long life into his 80's unlike MJ but in the end of his life the quality of it was deteriorating and his energy and the energy of my family was being spread too thin. And that was only 5 people. Imagine the transformation of millions of people worldwide.

What was your experience with Michael Jackson's death? What do you think will transpire out of Michael Jackson's death?