I love the Oprah-produced show on OWN called Master Class. Its basically a different person of interest/fame talking for an hour each week about their life, and just speaking into the camera, raw and real. The best episode so far, for me, was a few weeks ago with Billy Bob Thornton. Have always loved him, but this put it over the top. So many great quotes he had in his hour, its tough to pick just one, but this right here, what he speaks, is the way I feel 100% about death, and the TRUTH about what it does to a person, forever: My brother Jimmy, he was a young guy. In 1988, he died suddenly of a heart problem that they didnt know he had. He was 2 years younger than me. It changed everything. Ive only had a couple of times in my life when I was carefree, like a period of a couple years when I thought I dont really have any responsibilities. Im makin enough money. Im hangin out with my friends. For a couple of years, I felt okay. Which is very rare for me. And then he died, and Ive never trusted happiness since. I have to really force myself to think that things are gonna be okay, in terms of worrying about my family or myself or one of my friends, whatever. Ive never been the same since my brother died. Theres a melancholy in me that never goes away. Im 50% happy and 50% sad at any given moment, and the only advice I can give people for when you lose someone like that, is - you will never get over it, and the more you know that and embrace it, the better off you are. I dont want to forget my brother, and I dont want to forget what it felt like when he died, because he deserves it. Thats how important he was to me. So if I have to be alone here without him, without his particular thing, his sense of humor and what he brought to life - then thats the way Ill honor him. Ill be sad and melancholy about that forever, and I know it, and I accept it and I live with it. But I think its okay. I think its okay to have all those feelings. And as an artist, thats where a lot of your stuff comes from. You keep honoring those people, forever, by singing that song or writing that movie or writing that book, or whatever it is - that has a sadness and a melancholy and a fear in it. Those are the things that keep them alive. Whatever you put into your work or your family, or your art. You can do those things because of that pain. So you keep creating, and thats your gift to them - and they keep supplying you with the love and the fear and the grief to create from, and thats their gift to you. Forever. - Billy Bob Thornton, Master Class
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 22:21:57 +0000
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