29 years ago today, we lost a working class hero.

Ever wondered what life in the eyes of John Lennon was like?

(actual essay written a while back)

It is a funny feeling, discovering the work of someone who simply isn't around anymore. Can you miss someone you never knew? It is the year 2009, and I'm only just beginning to appreciate artistes like Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, The Beatles and others. Although I have only seen seventeen mere rounds of the earth around the sun, I feel like I've gone the distance and back in terms of music experience. No longer do I get excited about pop music, I settle for the mellow sounds of the soulful. I do not live on the hype of multimedia and technicolors, but am fueled by the raw, uncorrupted strum of a guitar accompanied by lyrical genius. I listen to a very wide variety of genres, everything from rock to even classical and opera, because it is not the form that matters to me, it is the substance. Soulfulness is what draws me in, senses engaged.

But I digress. This feeling, when you discover something great but realize you will never get more of it is amazing, enlightening yet disheartening all at once. It's quite like the story of Van Gogh, I guess. His works were only appreciated after his death. Although I am not an art fanatic, I feel like I can relate to the tremendous gain and at the same time the ultimate loss felt by those who are passionate about his work. To me, John Lennon was an intriguing character. His upbringing in a broken family, his rebellion in school which led to his eventual dropout, his starting The Beatles and writing song after song of greatness, even his experimenting with drugs and eventual dropout from the band and society, only to return with twice the genius and twice the love he was known for, up until the day he was shot. He was a flamboyant man whose experiences made up every piece of him, and manifested in the form of his music. He was the definitive working class hero. His musical march for peace was a phenomenon that swept mankind off its feet, and I would have been honored to have been able to witness this.

Many believe John had lost it when he met Yoko Ono, but to me he was only beginning then. He was discovering a new part of him; one that loved when he was being loved, one that forgave his debtors (evident when he wrote the heartbreaking song, 'Mother'). I do not understand what all the fuss was about. If John loved Yoko, why should the world interfere with their ignorance and selfishness? If anything, it probably made everything more endearing to him, being the born rebel that he was.

I would love to have seen John Lennon continue his legacy. Would the world be any different? Would the troops of the United States of America be trespassing the land of Iraq, spreading 'democracy', disrupting the peace in a place they have no claim over, where they were never asked for? Would we let them? Would there be any soldiers willing to fight the battles of a war that isn't theirs to fight, had the songs they whistled while marching across the fields been about peace and love? Would the world be as blinded to the truth as we are today? Would we be as complacent? Would the world be more about giving than selling?

What was life like in the eyes of John Lennon, exactly?

Because some people are different from others, because humanity is a tragedy unfolding, because the good die young, because the truth is constantly swept under the rug, because life is never fair, because the struggle of man will never end, because justice never seems to prevail, because the stars will never align the way they should, because conspiracy envelops every aspect of life, because Chapman was a mentally unstable man in possession of a gun who read 'Catcher in the Rye', because of a million reasons we cannot begin to understand, we will never, ever know first hand.

We can only imagine.

Rest in peace, John Winston Lennon (9 October 1940 ~ 8 December 1980)

* meant to post this yesterday but connection was non existent.