Admiration

While I still try to place my head around Ledger's death I hear things from a friend that made me shrug and blush. He said I was someone he learned to admire a lot; that my behaviour and actions somehow became lessons even if I didn't notice.

There's a silly bug inside me that always looked for people's attention and admiration. Despite my eloquent tone and sometimes outrageous manners and thoughts, I have a little shyness hidden the many layers of my being. These layers, mostly carved and constructed during the most recent years of my life are results of a willingness of going deeper and deeper in what I am and what I stand for. I guess that the moment I stopped trying to show who I am and what I'm capable of and simply did my thing, people probably to see these things and start finally admiring me.

This deliberate self-indulgent talk is also the sel-recognition that I have good to give and share. On the posts below I mention the million possibilities dead with Heath, and I suddenly remember a Virginia Woolf line in The Hours; when questioned by her husband why would someone had to die, she with her deep and hoarse voice replies: "Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It's contrast."

All my layers, all my principles, all my thoughts and actions, aren't [most of the time] loosed in the wind as I learn that thoughtfulness is the best path to serenity. That I am admired by others makes me fuzzy and perky I cannot deny; but what makes myself mostly fulfilled is that I'm myself's most admire, and no one can take that I away from me.

[Song: Liz On The Top Of The World - Dario Marianelli]

The Young Death

I'm still trying to cope with my feelings towards Heath Ledger's death.

For a while I was feeling guilty for being sad about the death of a celebrity while tons of people die this young here in Brasil. Then I started to think why was I sad and why should I feel guilty. First, just because he was a celebrity doesn't mean we can't feel his death; I read this on TFE:

"It's a media saturated voyeuristic age and we are essentially encouraged from all sides to be interested in the lives of beautiful strangers. And the movies have always served as an enticing proxy, a heightened version of real life; Experience this story. Feel this catharsis. Relate to this performance."

That way my guilt for mourning someone famous' death more than I mourned my granduncle's went away. It's not like I'm putting Ledger on the stupid "hero" pedestal, but to understand my feelings towards it I'm considering his death as not a "celebrity tragic death", but as "a young man's tragic death".

As every other young man, Heath Ledger was a well of possibilities; the difference is that we knew it because the media showed/told us all the time and we chose to see/listent to it. But that's where my feelings stop, I guess. I'm not worried in defining how and why Ledger died; my heart is only trying to understand why his death is tragic. And that's what I wrote on the previous post mean.

Those lesser things will be learned by us after scientific report about his death. Autopsy will determine how and why he died. For now I can only think what does it all mean to mean...

[Song: I Don't Blame You - Cat Power]

Heath Ledger And The Infinite Possibilities

Ever since watched on 10 Things I Hate About You Heath Ledger was for me a rising star. With his sexy and piercing Australian smile he shone before my eyes whenever I saw him onscreen. Firstly all the hype gotten with Brokeback Mountain excited me, then it bored me because BBM bored me; but his performance was never snubbed in my mind. For me he was already a great actor of his generation.

Celebrities in our time are the kings and queens of the past; and the media's high speed makes us know about their lives faster, having us feeling intimate with them more than what we wished. So, when a celebrity dies it's normal to have a commotion everywhere. To learn about Heath's sudden death was and has been shocking. People, and even us sometimes, might act skeptic about feelings over a stranger's death, but any death is close.

Now, as I mull over the facts and see how much people are putting the effort in trying to figure out such sudden loss, I feel my heart weight down and my mind wheel as I read more and more stuff about his supposed last hours. Why? Why am I affected by a distant celebrity's departure?

I guess that the reason lies more on what Ledger represented to me and my generation than Ledger himself.

Ledger represented the young promises, the infinite possibilities, the limitless ability and capacity. He characterized youth and his deep and long future. And with his death, it is the death of all of those things. No one imagines someone dying so young and that's why it's so shocking, especially because his deeds has been serving as models for many others from his age or younger. At this moment I not only speak of Mr. Ledger, but also of every promising youngster - famous or not - who died before all the promises inherent to his being became facts.

Heath Ledger however, will also be very missed.