Article Contributed on: 6/27/2009 4:19:31 PM
An associate of mine, John Fulton, former chair of Assembly District 40 of an Arapahoe County political party (a huge district that includes southeast Aurora, rural eastern Arapahoe County and Elbert County) sends out a regular e-newsletter soon to become a website titled "Aligning Colorado's Megastars." He describes his effort in this way:
"Three premises drive this...: 1) The University of Colorado & the State of Colorado always seem to me to be at odds with each other; 2) one simple way to help bridge the gap is a well-run, citizen-involving Colorado University Buffaloes football team; 3) ...which calls for laser focus on recruiting Sons of Colorado to play for CU, the State, our soil."
I think John is attempting to tether Colorado families and schools to the thought of containing youthful sports talent to play in the state rather than go away to play and study. Here, natural family and community support systems will hold them up, a successful concept in sports programs at universities and colleges in other states. Focused this way, Colorado residents could lift as well as deepen their own sense of emotional self through rooting for their own consistently, as well as financially bond with the school. Local talent playing for their own home crowd would strengthen oneness to the homeplace and time. John has been in touch with a number of entities at CU and other sports affiliates to build awareness of his committed work. The point is for players and their supporters to see that they can have what they really want out of sports at the university level if the student players stay close to home for still some of the best years of their lives. In this, university profiteering could not dominate the game.
A family of deep emotional roots suffering great pain and confusion, though one senses they anticipated a day like Thursday, is the family of Michael Jackson, the pop musician star who expired two days ago reportedly of cardiac arrest. It is suggested he experienced years of prescription self-treating. I would leave it at that.
Mr. Jackson seemed to live with a sense of destiny. An ex-wife reported he told her he "believed" he would pass away at a young age, like her father, Elvis Presley. I have some remembrance of reading an article about the Jacksons' early days in which it was written that some in the family tried to grow Michael up beyond his readiness at one point by introducing him to a professional female and to some concepts he was not ready to accept. It was discovered someone tried to foretell his future and produced gleanings that frightened some who, then, tried to keep them from Michael. Being precocious, he eventually learned some of what had been said. Though it may not have made a child an old man, it may have given Michael reasons for seeming to be a man committed to remembering himself as a child. He seemed to move toward some kind of day, locked in a place he identified inside.
His most famous video shows him transmuting through various masks until his face is that of a skeleton cadaver, not far different from appearances of him in recent years after reconstructive surgery. It was as if Michael had foreknown changes coming to his face and presaged them in his work. He progressed toward the face in the video. Personally though, and producing a conundrum in personal interviews, Michael presented a sweetness. He simply stepped aside to let the world see him in the condition he presaged for himself. One wonders if for a time, Michael, tried to counter his fright of how he thought his appearance might affect others one day by trying to have a beautiful visage surgically, whatever his standard for such beauty was. He didn't stop when he might have to avoid harming himself, it would appear. As to sweetness, the whole family has a sweet manner of speaking and presentation that is not characteristic only of Michael Jackson.
Perhaps Michael had been terrified by something overheard in his childhood as to his future, which may have made a determination in the man that he would retain the child and show how how the experiences affected a child. Perhaps on some level he knew he would always do this, though he wanted to appear a typical fellow. He would stick with his commitment to show us an ultimate appearance or a future life and an early demise that he may have gleaned. He may have been distinctly acting our for us his presentiment creative project by creative project. He sang "Beat It" as if to ward off a hovering thought.
He also identified firmly his response to this experience by showing us that he would be for us as an influential voice on behalf of the innocent, and a man who was loving, and he would challenge that taxing visage progressing him too soon toward a destiny with his own intellect of kindness.
He reportedly asked to write the lyrics for the We Are The World contributory songfest to fight world hunger as he indicated only he could write it and understood the message that needed to be expressed. Michael spoke to terror for children, singing that the spirit of love would defy the terror others can bring to us.
He committed himself to protect children. He remained childlike in personal presentation for a long time. Then he married and became a father. He found a way through changes to continue reminding us that a person can be hurt and changed forever in a way that seems to play to a destiny all by the doings of the world. His response was "We are the World. We are the Children." He seemed to want to get through this upcoming concert series and then he promised he would return to privacy and probably a more evident mature man. I think he thought if he worked real hard he might make it.
He was notable among many notables for being vastly generous, charitable, giving of himself, focused toward the needs of others, loving and endlessly sweetly childlike - an exemplar of defense. He was not immature. He was very, very aged. Perhaps he fought a battle we could not see, a kind not usually addressed in melodrama or the tabloids. He addressed his destiny and was not meek about it.
He did carry the mask theme to his children for a time and I think his family understood why - it was Michael's counter to his feelings that his appearance might be the basis of his pain and contribute to an early passing, when he was actually joyfully good-looking and everything good about him would have informed his appearance as he matured. His visage changed through surgery to appear more grotesque when he might have become quite a handsome man unto himself and his life. He was tall, well built, and his natural expression photographed beautifully and sweetly. How does one restrict enablers?
If there is accuracy in this, his family knew it all. They reportedly have allowed they were trying to reach and help him more concertedly in recent days. Maybe he was trying to help himself; maybe he was stepping back from his lifestyle to leap over destiny, but that is not clear.
Time was of the essence. The Elephant Man had a destiny, and it is said Michael wanted to preserve that figure's skeleton at one time. Maybe Michael was frightened by a visage long ago yet in attempting to progress away from it, he passed himself and seemed to come back toward that which he wanted to avoid. "Man in the Mirror" indeed! What was he really saying to us?
Now the masks have been removed and the man who was the potential in the child is seen clearly through his work and his generosity. In progressively revealing emotional roots, Michael Jackson revealed himself the man.