My own thoughts on Michael Jackson's death

I don't have any profound insights or juicy gossip into the circumstances or meaning of Michael Jackson's death, but I've been thinking a lot about the way his life and death have played in the media and in conversations I've had with friends about him in the last few days.

I find it absolutely fascinating that while he was alive, the most recent events in Jackson's life seem to have been the most heavily weighted in a typical person's perception of him. That is to say, his accomplishments as a musician were overshadowed by the last ten years in which his strange lifestyle, plastic surgeries, and accusations of child molestation were the only handles the public were given on his life.

But then he died and the meaning of the individual moments of his life suddenly seemed to gain equal weight. Now that he's dead, he has no present, and we seem to see each part of his past as equally important. Media coverage and the conversations I have observed acknowledge that the man was a very odd character with serious problems, but that seems to be overshadowed by respect for what he accomplished as a musician and a showman.

Why do react to death in this way? Why is it that a person's past is less important than their present when they are alive, but equally important after their death? I think it's because death ends the story of a life, and makes it possible to step back and contemplate the whole with more detachment than is possible of a story we're still observing in the unfolding.