The recent demise of Prince
demonstrated to me just how distant I am from the world of pop
culture. The man was barely a blip on my musical radar. As are most
pop icons, now or past.
I understand why some feel a loss.
These people become a part of our life. But isn’t the music still
there, the music that said something to us once? The world goes on.
We go on.
Perhaps Prince or B.B. King or Kurt
Cobain would have made more music that held meaning for us. Or
perhaps their time had passed anyway. Does it ultimately matter? We
can not lose what we never had.
That’s a popular paraphrase of
something Marcus Aurelius wrote nearly two thousand years ago (and
others most likely before him). He said also that loss is nothing but
change. Life must change, after all.
No, I did not know much of Prince. I
did not listen to his music. Perhaps I missed out on something but I
am certainly not concerned about it; I have undoubtedly missed out on
all sorts of things and shall continue to do so.
In time, I too will be ‘lost.’ We
all know it will not matter to anywhere near as many people as
Prince’s passing. But it is just as inevitable, just as much a part
of life and loss and change, and both those who knew me and those who
did not will continue their lives as before.
That’s all any of us can do, really,
isn’t it?
Stephen Brooke ©2016
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