... have you run your checks ..?

Last night, the actor Heath Ledger was found after transition.  It seems that there may have been medication involved.  He left at 28.

Not going to get into what it says to the world, just going to make sense of it for ME.  The first thing I began to do when I heard about it, was to 'run my checks'.  The idea of 'running checks', is something carried over from my boxing.  It means probing to see what is available, what works and is working.  It functions here as to gauging my life and my outlook on it as well as myself.

This is something that I do whenever I hear of this kind of tragedy.  Like I have said, this is about how this kind of thing relates to me, and what I need to do to make sure that I don't find myself staring into it ... and hearing voices calling out to me.

Happy to report everything came back more than just fine.  Since the possibility of what called Heath, whether it was carelessness or the voice of an agonized inner spirit, I have always wondered if there doesn't lurk something in me that would be a siren ...

... and you know what sirens do to sailors, right?

No, I don't go around identifying with this sort of thing.  But it makes as much rational sense as owning a gun, even though the chances of you DYING by gun increases more than the chance you would actually use it to defend yourself.  So don't you judge me!

But I remember when I implemented this personal system, when a media figure, did affect me.  Kurt Cobain.

I had purchased the Nirvana CD 'Insecticide' during a boxing trip to the Pacific Northwest.  It was 'aiight', nothing super special.  But we know what happened when they dropped 'Nevermind' on the world.  They blew up!

I listened to 'Insecticide' again, to see if it portended more than what I heard the first time.  I couple of the lyrics grabbed me more, and as the bands story spread, I found more similarities with Kurt Cobain than a few.

Though I never would call myself a tortured soul, I do think we all have dark areas of the soul.  What inhabits these places, varies from person to person, as does how we deal with them.  Me, I take mine to lunch on occasion, and catch up withthem.  What you do is what you do.

I think Kurt dealt with his thru his music.

From outsider to idol, the swift ascension was, I think, too great for him, and he kind of caught the bends as he rose.  I don't think that coming home to Courtney Love, who I think was to him, what people thought Yoko Ono was to John Lennon (and I think that Yoko was actually good for John ... and isn't that what matters ..?).  And that is being polite.  I really think she was a scheming opportunist, that when she saw his rising (after 'Insecticide', Nirvana started to warm up, IMO), she latched on, pretending to fill the needs he had ...

... but she didn't ... other wise, I think he'd be here, still.

I think his success was a bittersweet one, with more bitter than the sweet.  What it cost him, I don't think he was expecting to have to pay that.  What it got him, he never really wanted anyway, so what did that mean?  And as far as turning to Courtney ...

...what was the name of that song Nirvana had ..? oh, I have it right here ... "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die" ...

So gaining widespread success and riches didn't ease the demons, the agony that he lived through.  So he made the leap.

I put him in a special place ... for some reason, I DID identify with him.  He should have had all that he wanted, but to me, it seemed just as obvious that he didn't.  And I would find out, by my own bleak journey to the sea of oblivion ... that I needed to find some sort of mechanism to anchor me ...

... so I would put myself in a boxing ring ... and I would run my checks, to see if what I saw was there, where I could probe ... and do what it is that I do.  Though the Cobain association wasn't Hearns - Leonard in its scope, it did make me more aware that other things dwelled in the dark corners of my own mind ...