At what price fame

Michael Jackson died a tragic death. Despite his iconic fame, he couldn’t feel the love of his fans who adored him. The people closest to him were users – most in it for the money. Jackson was way beyond talented with a popularity that defied history, and yet he numbed his lonely existence with drugs and died from an overdose.

My heart mourns for him still. I compare his public growing up years with my private close-knit farming community where people brought food to a sick neighbor and mowed his lawn, where people helped out in a crises, whether it was baby sitting for a few hours or doing laundry in a pinch.

In our home, the saying was: “people are more important than peaches,” even though the peaches were ripe and ready to pick or to bottle. I think that’s a good motto for today, although, it certainly makes finding time to paint more difficult. Living by that rule requires my taking the time to call a friend, to offer cheer, or to comfort a grieving heart.

“There never seems to be enough time to do the things we want to do,” and should do (remembered song lyrics). We can’t be all things to all people either. But we should try to be true to ourselves.

We’d all like to be famous -- some day. We hope that our art will be noticed; at the very least, appreciated. We want to know that our contribution to the world is acceptable, appealing, or even praise worthy. What we don’t want is to lose all perspective of who we are and why we do what we do in the first place.