Carroll Shelby ...dead
Adam 'MCA' Yauch...dead
Junior Seau...dead
Dick Clark...dead
Mike Wallace...dead
All of these people died this year. Some just a few days ago. I did not know any of them or met them but they were part of what I knew of the world growing up.
They were icons.
I've had a curious relationship with death in my life. It evolves.
The when I read Carroll Shelby had died I had an unexpected reaction.
The Cobra. The GT40. In my 20's and 30's the idea of racing or even driving those cars pushed me through college (not very hard apparently but the effect was there.)
The man who created those beasts is dead and I felt challenged.
Challenged.
I thought about the idea and passion to create those cars. The passion to create music. To become an athlete. When those people die I felt like I was challenged.
Look what I did fucker....top it...
Maybe not top it but at least turn on it ....do something I do and really do it.
Hearing the news mourning, and it is absolutely a shame that good people, creative people, contributors die, hearing that low, sad, headshaking tone, it felt like that spirit, that passion was really going to die with them. As if no one else could do what they did.
But it can be, should be done, every day.
When I was in college I hoped one day I would win the Nobel prize. Physics, Literature, Peace. I was really pulling for Physics but the odds of getting the call from Stockholm now are long but its not disappointing.
I travel, I write, I draw, I see, I hear, I taste, everything, everyday.
When I put it together that people that create and contribute live and show what can be done they die it is the signal to do it for yourself.
Hopefully that signal is received beforehand.
As long as it is received that is what is important.
