John Lennon -- who I've written about recently on several occasions -- would have celebrated his 70th birthday today, if he had not been murdered 30 years ago...or that's what a lot of people are saying. More than anything else, it's nothing more than wishful thinking. He could have died from cancer 5 years ago, been run over by a bus 10 years ago or blown his own brains out 15 years ago.
I am all for commemorating someone's life, but this idiotic penchant we have for imagining how a person would be IF their life hadn't been cut short is silly. All of us go through changes as we age; some are trivial and some are dramatic. Some people are very conservative when young and grow more liberal as they age or vice versa.
The best we can do is to remember a person for who they were WHEN they were. Anything else is pure speculation, often tinged with our own objectification of that life -- in snapshot form -- now gone. We can make dead people into any damn thing we want as Glenn Beck recently tried to do with the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.!
I will spend part of today reflecting on Lennon's life and his many messages to the world. I will remember him for who he actually was (as far as I know) and not for who he might have become.
I am all for commemorating someone's life, but this idiotic penchant we have for imagining how a person would be IF their life hadn't been cut short is silly. All of us go through changes as we age; some are trivial and some are dramatic. Some people are very conservative when young and grow more liberal as they age or vice versa.
The best we can do is to remember a person for who they were WHEN they were. Anything else is pure speculation, often tinged with our own objectification of that life -- in snapshot form -- now gone. We can make dead people into any damn thing we want as Glenn Beck recently tried to do with the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.!
I will spend part of today reflecting on Lennon's life and his many messages to the world. I will remember him for who he actually was (as far as I know) and not for who he might have become.
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