Remaining open has been my lesson these past few days following Michael Jackson's death.
How many times have we gotten into arguments with loved ones just because we closed up immediately, assumed the worse from the start and stopped listening to the message being conveyed right here, right now?
I cannot count with my fingers and toes the times my hubby and I argued over simple wrongful assumptions..."I thought you'd do this, so I did this". Proof that we live 99% in our heads, so sure of the outside facts, yet never stop to actually check these facts and see if things have changed with each new situation.
With Michael Jackson, I have always loved, loved, loved his music. Although you will not find any of his songs in my Ipod for I hear mostly music in Spanish, his music and his lyrics have been part of the background of my past for as long as I can remember. In trying to understand the severity of the mourning people around me are going through, I started watching loads of interviews with the singer/dancer through www.Hulu.com and also through www.youtube.com. The more I watched, the more I became increasingly sad that I did not know enough about a person like himself before he died. I find out now that MJ was so in tune and parallel with who I am as a person.
In just having watched hours of interview footage on him, anyone with half wits could see that he was practically an asexual being, whose gender was comfortably undefined. Like a pre-pubescent child who does not care whether he or she were a girl yet, Michael Jackson seems to me childlike in all his action. From his voice, to his demeanor, from what makes him happy, to his sense of humor...it all is childlike, honest and pure.
What made me angry beyond repair while watching these interviews were the majority of the interviewers who were always so self-righteously and visibly shocked at his apparently "odd" choices.....like the one interviewer who asked 3 times how he would find it fun composing in a tree, or the interview with Oprah in which she asked him if he was a virgin. Question after question I became more and more disgusted at the open disrespect they extended to the King of Pop. I'm pretty sure Oprah would be eternally offended if SHE were asked if she were a virgin. One interviewer became increasingly persistent in getting MJ to confess his facial surgeries after denying them various times.
I have seen this type of behavior many times in my life. Whenever a person dares vary from the common gender allowances we associate for men and women it seems like all of the sudden respect and decency go out the window....all of the sudden your very humanity is questioned and no bars are held....
So I am open ready to truly hear and experience all that is coming from a person without adding on my own spin. I am ready and open to be an example of openness to those around me who might only choose to see what they see.....Michael Jackson was a gentle soul, an amazing songwriter, musical and choreographer. He also saw his role in the larger picture of life and his life work purposely addressed us as part of ONE world. His message was one of peace, love and compassion.
Miriam, I am with you about Michael Jackson. I think his creativity was expressed in "the work of himself" and people needed to give him enough space. It did bother me about his law suits, but I think if he really had a predator's personality, he would have been convicted. He seemed so lightly in this world and offered help to those in need. His example of active compassion should be remembered. <3
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