witnesstherevolution

No, not the song from Mulan. Though feel free to go have a listen before you read this because lets face it, you wont be able to not think about it otherwise.

Im talking about actually taking a moment to have a think, like I did just now.

I awoke this morning to the news that Patrick Swayze had lost his battle against cancer. I switched on my TV to watch back the VMAs and saw a moving tribute to Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. I checked my twitter just now to find out that Keith Floyd, a not hugely well known but a legend to those who did know him TV chef, had passed away.
Any death is a sadness, a collection of deaths is a tragedy...but I think it takes a year like this one to make us truly appreciate what it is to be alive.

I dont think there's a feeling in the world quite like waking up one morning to hear on the TV or radio that a celebrity has died. There's no heartwrenching grief like there would be if it was a relative or close friend. There's no sinking heart but stony face like there would be if it were a stranger who had been shot, or stabbed. Its not the 'what can we do? how can we help?' of a natural disaster.
Its a shock, its 'how could this happen?' And then comes the sadness, because the celebrity now feels like an aquaintance, and that aquaintance is gone. In the boring every day of our lives, celebrities become a reassuring constant, something that you can look to that doesnt change unexpectedly. They sing, they star in movies and appear on TV, they're there when you open the pages of a magazine so you can critique the dress they were wearing last night. Even when they retire or take a break, they are still there to be heard about. And then one of them goes and dies, and that constant thing in your life is rocked to the core. Its just suddenly not there.
You cant avoid it like it was a stranger, but you're not always thinking about it like it was your family. You'll mourn the celebrity with the rest of the world, and then you'll go on with your life. But every time you open a magazine, or turn on the television, expecting them to be there, and they arent, you're reminded how impermanent life can be.

Yet eventually you move on, and the celebrity becomes remembered for what they did best. Their movies, their music, their legacy.

Sometimes the world will go a long time without somebody 'of note', shall we say, dying. But some years, like this one, become a permanent morbid waiting game as to who will be the next to go. And as each one does, you remember the others that have. Each constant from your life ripped away.
Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays, Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy, DJ AM, Patrick Swayze...names off the top of my head from this year alone.
When a string of celebrities passes away you are forced to confront the fact that life itself is hideously fragile. And that even these, our constants, our celebrities, can surcome at any moment to the end of life, to death.

But burying our heads in the sand and ignoring this is allowing these people, these human beings, to die in vain. Yes, death is a tragedy and its inevitable, but these people that have died have shown us how we must appreciate life while we have it. Look around you, look at your friends, your family, your classmates, your teachers, your bus driver, the people you pass on the street. Life is precious and wasting it, in my opinion, is one of the worst crimes you could committ. Go and hug the people you love and live your life to the fullest, because you never know whats going to happen tomorrow.