David Bowie's death is one of the very few artists' that could have still shocked me. Music, for a long time, has ceased to be a form of art in the charts of this world, and he was one person I still considered an artist although the music junkies of the world bought his albums. When compared to everyone in the charts these days David Bowie looked like a completely different league, making music not necessarily for entertainment or enjoyment. A true performer, he was one of these people you rarely see that were doing the only thing they could have been doing, and that was express himself in music. And as a writer trying to find my craft as a form of expression I am mourning his death not as the loss of a musician but as a talent, artist and beacon for everyone who does what they're best at.
I am far away from being a David Bowie fan, knowing only a fraction of his songs and not being able to recite his bonus tracks on various albums, but I have long been an admirer of him as a person. Since Michael Jackson we, in my opinion, have not lost someone who was born to do what he did, with the exception of Robin Williams as a comic maybe. It is something so inspiring to me to watch a person defy what is easy in this world to employ the talents God gave them. David Bowie was a musician, and I would argue he would never have been able to be anything else. Charisma like his cannot be learned, and next to his obviously popular music I will remember being attracted to a young Bowie who was plain ugly and creepy looking because he was in an element I knew nothing about.
The amazing truth is that the message of his death is one that makes people think: what is a world without music? What is a world without talent? What is a world without David Bowie? Obviously, very few of us will actually live in a different world than yesterday, however, the question in my head was a different one: What is a world in which we don't do what David Bowie did? To me, Bowie is a person who employed 69 years exactly how you should. It is said he died in peace, and I can't see how it would be hard for Bowie to leave this planet with regret. 69 years filled with living life to the fullest. Many will say he died too early, but I'd rather have 69 years of being David Bowie than 100 of being many others. And I am pretty sure the quality of his 69 years outshine many, and not just because he married supermodels, did a lot of drugs and was an international superstar.
For my life, his death became a reminder: be like David Bowie, Sina! Make weird choices, not right ones, and try to be able to leave this Earth at 69 without thinking "damn, if only I had a few more years!" So far, my 27 years were filled with achievement I feel happy with, but I will need another 40 to succeed the way I want to. If I have another 40 isn't up to me, so I am going to have to focus on getting a good life in the present, not the future, now. Freddie Mercury, for God's sake, had way less that 69 but damn, that guy lived every second of his short life in the right way. If tomorrow never comes I want it to have been a life of David Bowie, with success because I did the only thing I was born to do, and after quite some time on this planet I have a pretty good idea of what that is. I want to be a rock star, but I'm not a rock star! We all need to find what we're good at and make that the content of our life so that one day we can fall as asleep without regret. Not the easiest challenge but let's at least try...
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