“Everybody gon' respect the shooter/But the one in front of the gun lives forever” is just one of those lines I think about from time to time because you never get it the first time, but once you do, it haunts you for life.
@literallycandid Exactly! You know, I find it funny that one can be marginalised or policed for being different by heteronormative standards, only to end up enforcing the same rigidity in queer spaces which one is supposed to be free in 🤷🏾♂️
It's never made sense to me.
@literallycandid my take on this one is there exists a certain level of obsession with labelling that once reached, defeats its entire purpose conveying yourself. Like imagine flattening your entire human experience into one or more words?
So whenever they die the illusion of conquest over death is broken, and if the person you held up in your heart is not immune…then you are not immune either, and thus reminded of your own mortality.
Dolly Parton dying (and the subsequent reactions) reminds me of Ernest Becker's Denial of Death, where he argues that people like leaders, celebrities, and pioneers are defences we hold up against immortality and insignificance.
He added that the pain from their death is mostly from the reminder of its indifference to the people we admire or value because they transcended the limits of what we thought was humanly possible. Even standing above this death and insignificance at times.