I believe that Michael Jackson was one of the most normal (yes, I said normal)human beings of our time. The white glove, a confession that he slept with children, an absolute insane ability to dance, showing up to court in pajamas, and umpteen plastic surgeries that are more science-fiction like than the new Transformers movie, all prove my point. Here’s why.
Subject matter for "Tranformers - the movie" ??
extreme personality characteristics that would undermine their personal conditions. And when they didn’t naturally possess such destructive characteristics, society would essentially squeeze and pressure them into tremendous states of unhappiness and/or abnormal behavior. Sometimes people would have extreme personality characteristics AND societal pressures that did them in. I think that was the case with Michael.
David loved women. So did JFK and Bill Clinton. So does the current governor of South Carolina. One always has to ask the question: In the face of their tremendous success, why would such men subject themselves to such risk by womanizing? Kings and presidents and governors and ministers aren’t supposed to do those things, but they do. Yet it seems as though Kings and presidents and governors and ministers are ESPECIALLY prone to such things, despite their rational knowledge of the risks. They are politicians. They are very, very smart people. They have been skilled in assessing risk and weighing options. But this is not even close to being an exercise in rationality. This is an exercise in irrationality, of things that are more powerful than our internal sense of right and wrong, normal and abnormal, legal and illegal. So
Monica and Bill
what magical power do women have over them that they would be blind to such risk at the height of their careers? The answer – they possess a personality characteristic or a gene or perhaps even a little man in their head who chants at them in the shower and in the middle of news conferences. One really has to wonder what conversations are going on inside their heads. In fact, there is more comedic material here than one can even imagine. The fact is that it is normal for such abnormally talented and successful people to have abnormal tendencies.
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one of the great organizational geniuses of our time, also was a cross dresser and would go shopping in NYC dressed like a socialite. But he was also a heavily bearded man, whose 5:00 shadow probably gave him away on more than one occasion. Abraham Lincoln was horribly wracked with depression. And some of the greatest mathematical puzzles are not solved by normal individuals, but by autistic children. Eleanor Roosevelt allegedly had lesbian lovers, who were, by the way, investigated by J. Edgar Hoover. Pete Rose (prolific gambler), Howard Hughes (whacked out, prescription-drug-addict billionaire), Babe Ruth (drunkard and womanizer), Michael Phelps (bong picture seen by over 1 billion people), A-Rod (lied) Mel Gibson (went on a drunken, racial-slur rampage), on and on and on and on.
Most times (“most” is a synonym for normal) what makes people great is also what brings them down. Sometimes extreme personalities are not only extreme on the positive side, but extreme on the negative side as well. And we, the public, try so hard to find heroes and use them as standards, and those heroes have a tremendous ability to disappoint us, not because they were bad people, but because they were “normal” in their abnormal behaviors.
Let’s move on to the second – societal pressure. Let’s assume that you don’t have any gene forcing you to cross dress or go into gagaland when your intern walks into the room and asks you to sign some documents. Your psychological makeup is as close to “normal” as it can be. Well, the fact is that I’m really not sure that you have what it takes to do something great. If you are operating within the confines of what we believe is acceptable, then you might not be qualified to think through or see through the complexity of issues or systems necessary to come up with a solution or make a billion dollars. Some say that it was Abraham Lincoln’s severe depression that allowed him to think so deeply about things. Depression often comes along with obsessive-compulsive tendencies and an over-studying of existing situations and how to fix those situations.
But even if you DO make it to the top without the Old Maid in your hand, society is going to do its best to make sure you suffer. We rob our child stars of their childhood, and they become crack heads and irresponsible citizens. We film our heroes and take pictures of them and hound them around town and shove microphones in their faces until they crack or wreck as they flee the paparazzi. Being at the top subjects a person to tremendous scrutiny, and such scrutiny is enough to make you crack.
My point is this: When you are destined to do something great, you are also destined to do something wild, not-so-great, or something absolutely unacceptable. And if you are not naturally prone to do this, we will ensure that you do it by hounding you to death. You might become the greatest movie star of all time, but you will also love to smell dirty socks. It’s all you can think about. In news conferences when reporters ask you about your movie set, you respond by asking people how long they have been wearing their socks. We find that abnormal. But people who follow movie stars will tell you that that is the norm. You might be the greatest president of a generation, but when that intern walks through the door, you morph into an Angus bull, in all his glory, pawing at the ground and making sure that your seed gets sewn. Flying to Brazil for a quickie doesn’t seem out of the realm of rationality, at least your rationality.
And so, whether Michael Jackson came along with a double deck of cards full of obsessions and compulsions and ism’s as part of his genetic makeup or whether we made him that way, one thing is for sure: He left an amazing legacy. His album-selling records are the equivalent of Hank Aaron having 2000 homeruns. Not 714, but 2000. No one is even close. His absolute obsession with practice gave us the best dancing we have ever seen and several of the best songs ever recorded, including my favorite, Billy Jean. The same obsession with perfection is what made him obsessed with perfecting his face. You have to understand; it was genetically impossible for him to leave his face as it was. The same passion for perfection in dancing and music made him seek out a perfect look for his face. And most will say that his successes in the former were nearly balanced by his failures in the latter. And we joke about it………. and we probably should joke about it. It helps us cope. It helps us forgive, and it helps us keep in the forefront exactly what normal should be. And frankly, jokes about normal things really aren’t very funny. So, at the very least, I would like to thank Clinton and Jackson and Gibson and Lincoln for their obsessions, fetishes, and their tremendous contributions to our inventory of jokes.
Freaks? Probably. Freakishly talented, certainly. But that’s what it takes to get the job done. Abnormal feats take abnormal talent. Abnormal talent is also abnormal behavior. As a result, it is normal for great people to be abnormal.
So, give them a break; don’t ever expect your heroes to be normal.
2 Comments
Fred – great points and I agree.
We are kidding ourselves if we don’t expect our hero’s to have warts and suffer all manner of human foibles.
That doesn’t mean we condone their poor behavior or the excesses they’re prone to – it’s just that, “there – but for the grace of God” goes every single one of us.
We’re all genius – in a narrow range of skills. And our strengths – taken too far – become a weakness that will likely become a downfall.
Because of these truths – we need a team around us to balance our genius and strengths. The key is to be blessed with good humor, a dollop of humility, and surrounded by good partner(s) willing to tell us when we’re being a bozo!….and, oh yeah – we have to be willing to listen.
Our ability to convert a breakdown into a breakthrough comes from the willingness to learn from failures. It’s sad that with all the resources famous people have, they can’t attain equanimity – that hallmark of calm equilibrium. That would be a life without excess – something most of our hero’s don’t discover.
Harrison, well put.
Fred