An Immense Talent, A Tragic Loss

"They're reporting that Heath Ledger died," my sister Cindy said. I was hunched over my computer, writing a difficult piece, and she'd called me from work. "The news is just breaking."

"What???!!!" It couldn't be true. Not him. Please let it not be him. I got off the phone and rushed into the living room. Nothing yet. Then onto the Internet for a search. Didn't find it at first. Then there it was. The strewn pills. The suggestion of suicide. Heath Ledger, dead in New York at 28.

It was one of those sick-stomach stand-still moments, like when my mom told me that JFK Jr's plane had disappeared somewhere over the Atlantic.

It was true, of course. Later reports would be more accurate, more respectful. The pills were not strewn, it was likely a tragic accident.

Although I didn't know Heath Ledger, I had tremendous admiration for him as an artist. He was clearly a genuine talent. His performance in "Brokeback Mountain" was up there with the greatest of all time, hinting at the character and integrity of the human being behind the performance -- a heterosexual man, with the guts to tackle that material.

But I had a weird feeling of premonition when reports came out last September that he'd split from his fiancee, Michelle Williams, the mother of his 2 year old child. "Not good," I thought. If the images I saw of them on television the night of the 2006 Academy Awards were in any degree reflective of the truth, they looked like the archetype of young genuine love.

For that to have gone wrong, even after they'd had a child together, suggested something very wrong. Whether it was Hollywood, too much too soon, pushing him too hard with its sick falsity and emphasis on box office, or the lure of partying opportunities, or fear of intimacy, self-loathing, or all of the above, who knows? Often, the most sensitive and perceptive humans are the ones who suffer the most from melancholy, self-doubt. And then, enter the prescription drugs or the alcohol or what-have-you and the stage is set for tragedy.

This is a very very sad day. My heart breaks for all who knew and loved him. I know the pain of heartbreaking loss. The wound heals even as it always bleeds.

Memory, Brokeback Mountain

"The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack's sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he"d thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack's own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack, but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands."

-- Annie Proulx

Mediocracy?

"As a result of being caught up in our cultural trance, we in America no longer live in a democracy; we live in a 'mediacracy'. The media is so heavily influenced by its corporate sponsors that even the world's events are editorialized into opinion pieces. As far back as 1880, John Swinton, a writer at The New York Times, was quoted as saying, 'The business of journalists is to destroy the truth.... We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.' This sentiment continues today: Because advertisers who finance the news are interested in creating good consumers who buy their burgers, they have no interest in helping us look or think outside the box."

- Alberto Villoldo, PhD, in "The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power and Grace of the Earthkeepers"


I'm inclined to agree with Villoldo, pictured above, but I think it's about a lot more than buying burgers. At the same time, I'm still very much inclined to stand up for what remains of true journalism: those who are not employed by the corporate entities are still very much about uncovering the truth. And it's essential to what remains of our democracy. Whether and where their voices and what they uncover may still be heard - and by how many - is another important question.

Anyway, Villoldo's main point is not to gulp down everything you hear on the morning or evening news and to cultivate what he calls nonjudgment:

"You see, when you practice nonjudgment, you refuse to automatically go along with others' opinions of any situation. In doing so, you begin to acquire a sense of ethics that transcends the mores of our times. This is important today when the images of the media have become more convincing than reality, and our values -- liberty, freedom, love, and the like -- are reduced to sound bites and empty platitudes."

I say amen to that.