DYING YOUNG
The Dynamics of Becoming Legendary
Man´s fascination with untimely death, often in combination with spectacular achievements, beauty and to an extent, innocence is a global phenomenon.
Youth, the unveiled awakening, the mesmerizing expectations for what life may bring stopped short generate a collective grief nursed by the middleaged and the old, the jaded, blasé and disillusioned and remind us of our own mortality. A life wasted or void of social and emotional show stoppers may even potentiate the rational or irrational wish for passing on and to be remembered for the potentials we may once have transcended. A ticket to the Parnassus of the Unforgettables.
The loss of Antinous drove the Emperor Hadrianus to madness, as did the death of the young hero Hyacinthus to the god Appolon. The history books tell us of the losses of the young and beloved from ancient China and Persia to the Bard´s devastatingly emotional ”Romeo and Juliet” and the untimely death of the English Rose, Princess Diana.
Tut´An Chamon has received so much more attention by doing nothing except for dying young than his uncle, Ac´Naton (Echnaton), who literally transformed Egypt by ordering the death of the timless Amon cult, destroying the god´s temples and statues, possibly the most violent religious reformer in history. At his death his achievements were disregarded and the old religion restored within a decade. Ac´Naton had the audacity to become reasonably old and he never became a legend except for the Egyptologists until only recently.
To commit suicide when young and unvarnished is tolerated and lamented. To do the same in ripe old age is regarded as an act of selfishness, a maladie and a social failure. It may still be regarded as a criminal act and an unsuccessful attempt may be severly punished depending on creed and the current legal system.
The death of the young, celebrities or nobodys in particular, nurtures our universal dream of eternal youth, forever young, a tabola rasa with almost unlimited possibilities unless you live in conditions where dying young is a constant companion.
The endless row of celebrities such as James Dean, Jean Harlow, Montegomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe, Pier Angeli, Francoise Dorleac (sister of Catherine Deneuve, considered more beautiful and talented), Gerard Phillipe, Jimmy Hendricks, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and so many more is in a cruel way entertainment at it´s best. They die, we are still alive. We will die but we may, God willing, probably outlive them with many years. Even when depressed we hope for the Knight in Shining Armour to rescue us and change our lives for ever.
Christ died young. Would all the young people passing on have become the legends they are? James Dean with an Obstructive Pulmanory Disease and a walking chair? Marilyn Monroe with artritis and incontinence? Alexander the Great as a tyrant an ad grumpy old man in a declining empire?
None of us wish to hear a story of Juliet becoming a lazy, bored and overweight matron and Romeo a balding lewd and dirty old man. We cherish the thought that this was not meant to be and we cry over ourselves and what never happened.
During the two last years many of the fix stars of my childhood and teens have passed on. You become reminded that you are no longer a hope for the future or promising. You will have to do with what you are with flaws or commonplace virtues or what you may have fallen victim to. Without mercy.
Escapism is an integral part of our being, no matter how rational you consider yourself. Your rationality may be an escape from what you do not understand or wish to avoid. Schopenhauer governs your mind that what you cannot experience with your senses does not exist...So much for the celebrated String Theory or The Selfish Gene...It´s not look they used to hang on the wall for us to see.. And yet, they existed.
Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder and the ideal differs depending on the sociocultural context. In youth oriented cultures old age far too often is reppelent, seen as a decay of the body. In others, wisdom that comes with age and character written in facial wrinkles are regarded as beautiful. Fat or thin. The body ideal differs from a poverty stricken country or an overly affluent one. Dying young, however, is universally observed and lamented and creates a dramaturgy as to the why´s and the exploring of a possible Divine intervention or fate.
The fifty plus stars and other publically known people dying is void of glamour. Grace Kelly is one of the very few who became an everlasting star iun spite of being a fully grown woman at her death. The lament over Catherine the Great or Marlene Dietrich was either politically correct or nostalgia. We may even avoid to celebrate their memory to escape that fact that it may be our turn next week...
(Bust of Antinous)
Douglas
2012
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