Call to action: Humanity must end aging through science

We all contain biological clocks of sorts. We measure time not just by the passing of each second, but in the broader context of what we perceive to be a human lifecycle and the sheer reality of the aging of our bodies. This notion pervades all individuals, and it explains much of the patterns of human behavior. It is the reason why people chose to settle in their twenties and thirties, often building a nest with a mate choice and sometimes having children; and also the core reason for the notion of retirement. Significant institutions such as retirement and social security are premised on the acceptance of a population which will suffer physical and mental decomposition ending with death. The critical question is whether we do right in accepting the phenomenon of aging as a natural and immutable force of nature? To answer this we must seek to understand more deeply the reason of its existence as well as the positive and negative consequences of the human lifecycle on individuals and society. The stakes at hand are not only the death or survival of all readers (as well as everyone they’ve ever known or will know), but as I will seek to show, social development beyond the inherited class limitations which currently constrain human society.

Why is it that there has not been more questioning around the fundamental span and lifecycle of human life? Everywhere around us we see irrefutable evidence of individuals seeking to escape their personal death-sentences (except in the case that they are so bothered by the specter of their own mortality that they deliberately give themselves over to self-destructive behaviors). Those who would seek to combat aging as best they can shift to healthier lifestyles so as to mitigate the damage of time. Frequently, individuals turn to cosmetic solutions so as to disguise their true decay – the skin cream industry grows as does the use of plastic surgery. Bending and sagging women who in their youth took pride in turning heads undergo facelifts, collagen injections, silicone implants and other such crude manipulations of faces and body parts to resemble the gloss, smoothness and rubbery qualities of the youthful female body. Many more consume increasing quantities of drugs either to reduce morbidity (e.g., Lipitor) or for reasons of lifestyle (e.g., Viagra). Less attention is paid to mental faculties, despite similar breakdowns in the functioning of the mind. Yet how many among us would let our thoughts darken in the haze of Alzheimer’s? How many of our loved ones would we allow to suffer strokes that will strand them on an island of infant-like dependence as the waters of their perdition continue to rise? Despite this frenzy of activity among the older population to stave off crippling aging, society as such has accepted it as fact that technology cannot but play a relatively superficial role in a decay understood to be inevitable. We have accepted that our fate is to break down and rust as a bicycle that has been left out in the snow.

This last point would not be alarming if it were not for the fact that it fundamentally misunderstands life. Does a living cell decay by its very existence as a bit of iron exposed to the elements will rust? Obviously not – they are programmed to die. In fact, aging individuals who already have hair full of gray and a body replete with streaks of decomposition also have cells which have not aged a single day since they were born. The reason for this is that not all parts of the body age at the same rate – human sex cells are immune to aging, even if the reproductive system altogether (which is mostly composed of somatic cells) does break down due to age. In fact, if old parents produce offspring, the baby is still born at age 0. This true understanding of what this fact means is astounding: human reproduction constitutes the individuation of fully youthful cells which have arisen from two older adults who have united gametes. If cells necessarily decayed by their mere existence, would this not mean that human adults would not be able to give birth to youthful human babies? Would the baby not necessarily be born with the same cellular age of the parents, despite its physical immaturity? The fact that this is not so should fully dispel the rusting bicycle model of human life. In fact, combining this observation with an understanding of evolution makes clear that we are all part of an eternally youthful cell-line that stretches back to the first stirrings of life. Like bacteria, the human species has not aged a single day. Rather we ride the incessant churning of death as we continue to create new youth. The fundamental question is whether this inherent violence in human death and procreation is technically and ethically necessary.

Recent scientific discoveries have uncovered why it is that sex-cells are immune to aging while the rest of our cells (somatic) must be burdened by cellular damage with the passing of time: the answer lies in the mechanism of cell division. Whereas sex-cells have a particular enzyme (telomerase) which ensures that each cell-division creates new equally youthful cells – somatic cells lack this enzyme and therefore incur damage (shortening of the telomeres) as they continue to divide. It seems humans have been designed to last a certain number of years (and cell-divisions) before widespread cellular breakdown occurs leading to death (cf. Hayflick limit). However, scientists have been able to alter the DNA of regular somatic human cells so that these cells will also produce the restorative enzyme, thereby disabling the main mechanism of aging. The result has been the creation of immortal somatic human cells in the petri-dish: cells that continue to divide healthily without experiencing cellular damage (their telomeres do not shorten).

Given this staggering fact it is absolutely critical that humankind answer the following two questions. Firstly, can we create age-less bodies? – i.e., is it technically possible or expedient to reproduce this achievement of single-cell genetic engineering on the scale of entire human bodies so as to significantly extend what we understand as the human lifecycle? And secondly, should we do it – i.e., would it be unethical or socially damaging to seek to engineer the human lifecycle?

Technically, it does not seem to be nearly as difficult to disable this main mechanism of aging in the human body as it was to launch a rocket through the atmosphere, have a human crew take a few steps on the moon, and re-enter orbit safely. The Manhattan project which increased the human destructive capability and brought doomsday closer to realization also probably required much greater investment than would likely be required to provide this enzyme to each cell in the human body. When placed in this context it seems evident that it is only a matter of time and investment before human bodies are liberated from the shortening of telomeres which drives senescence. This would not put an end to diseases like cancer and so on, but it would definitely reduce human morbidity given that most death is partly enabled by the damage of aging (this is the reason heart disease is more prevalent in older individuals than young ones). The key technical challenge seems to revolve around inserting the telomerase gene into somatic cells in already-living individuals. This boils down to the main problem of most genetic engineering: changing the DNA of the billions of individual cells which constitute an organism. But we are not without ideas on how to do this. The highest likelihood of success seems to be the use of engineered retroviral vectors to insert this gene into all cells. It goes without saying, however, that insufficient vision, as well as a lack of scientific focus and investment still leaves us in a position where we must heavily invest money, time and talent in the necessary research and development to support telomere restoration.

Despite the remaining challenges, the achievement would perhaps rank among the most beneficial in history – the elimination of senescence driven by telomere shortening. And we must take courage in our understanding of what needs to be done. The only thing standing between humanity and success is widespread recognition of the necessity of this scientific innovation, as well as the approval to drive the required research. Once resources and human talent are committed to this technical question, it is a matter of time before a solution is discovered. Therefore, we would clearly be better off focusing more talent and resources on this question rather than purely cosmetic issues such as better skin creams and other treatments for the symptoms of aging. Even the extensive research in major killers of the day like cancer and heart disease would yield much lower benefits than a major breakthrough in the treatment of cellular senescence via telomere restoration.

At this point, many people may remain skeptical that this can or should realistically be achieved because they do not fundamentally believe human bodies should persist without breaking down. Such a view arises from a refusal to do away with the rusting bicycle model of life. These people may insist with pseudo-moralistic distaste that longer life would be unnatural. By such flippant opinions they would seek to write-off the lives of humanity to suit their sense of the natural. However, scientists such as evolutionary biologists and anthropologists, know that this notion of nature lacks a proper understanding around the drivers for lifespan found in nature. Human beings live longer than horses which live longer than mice, and so on. Yet some plants such as trees may live much longer still – with some trees being tens of thousands years old and still being in perfect health. Finally, bacteria never end but continue to replicate ad infinitum. The reason is that aging seems to be largely driven by the amount of predation and incurred mortality of the specific species. Species with few predators such as turtles, elephants or whales live longer because it is less important for them to reproduce quickly so as to evolutionarily out-innovate predators. This suggests clearly that lifespan is a biological trait which has been designed by nature in the game of evolution. These conditions have been surpassed by human society and no longer govern our affairs.

The evolution that will ensure the survival of the human species will be an evolution of the soul first, and technology second. The threats we face are not starvation, but man-made ecological devastation. The killers to combat are not the white fang of the ravenous tiger, but rather our own lack of imagination. We should never resign ourselves to fates we have not questioned, for true human nature is to unravel the seeming inevitability of nature by wit, skill and technique. Although the human lifecycle has been the passive beneficiary of advances in health which have extended average life-span through better care, humanity must still do away with the self-destruct feature in our evolutionary design.

As I will argue next, doing away with a life of aging is not only tantamount to saving everyone’s life for a significant number of years, it will also have huge social benefits which may not be immediately apparent.

On evil and human short-sightedness

I met someone recently who had been a heroin addict. A youthful bright red-head who described falling in with the wrong influences and being “bad”. It brought to mind the old platonic distinction between doing things that are wrong because you are bad and fundamentally desire to do evil versus doing the wrong things because you are ill-informed (about what is actually good) and therefore make the wrong choices (because you pick things you think are good but which in reality are not).

The question at heart is what motivates certain actions – is it an inadequate understanding of the consequences of performing an action or fundamentally deviant motives where the individual actually wishes to do “evil”. Are there really such evil acts in existence, where even though we see the damage and understand the world of hurt we can still look into the other’s eyes and wish them death and their loved ones misery and simply pull the trigger.

I remember that scene from American History X when Derek’s younger brother gets blown away in the bathroom, leaving the other kid’s face pattered with blood freckles as he holds the smoking gun.

Although it is common sense not to question the existence of evil, even the genocidal maniacs in WWII justified their heinous crimes by referring to a good for Germany. Their ideology infected the country with a belief that such methods were necessary for a public good. Thus, there is a kernel of truth in the ultra-rational view that no evil act is carried out without some justification or reference to how it may bring about a good. Still, it is not true that evil is thus a product of logical deficiencies as if objective robots would be the pinnacle of ethics and good will. This largely misses the point that people will pretend all sorts of things are good and fool themselves into acting on perverse incentives. Nazi ideology is an example of this, as gang culture which weaves a sense of manhood around murder and aggression, or even spiking a vein may rest on the insistence that you aren’t hurting anyone else and simply flooding the body with well-deserved pleasure. Whatever these statements may be, they are not sensible attempts to get at the truth of the issue but more excuses designed to cover-up the substratum of loneliness, despair, perverse and morbid fascination.

It seems fair to say that evil is absolutely real in the moment’s immediacy – where wrath, and hatred and the desire to destroy crystallize in bullets, or the needle’s prick. But nonetheless, we humans must always weave a web of stories and justifications to convince ourselves why this makes sense, why this aims for the good – a need bred of a deep-seeded yearning for good things. And in the long-run it is hard enough to sustain these delusions. Although it is true that individuals are motivated by short-term “goods”, these often show themselves to be false goods on the long-run even though they deliver a moment of satisfaction.

The existence of evil therefore directly arises from the contradiction between our preference for short-term “goods” and their misalignment with long-term benefits. This is why most acts of violence are carried out in the moment of its motivation. This justifies why premeditated murder should be judged much more harshly than accidental killing before the law—because scheming and sustaining murderous intent betrays deeper malevolence than explosive anger. We must disagree with the Platonic formula of bad acts arise from ignorance of what “the good is” – it now seems more accurate to say that evil arises out of an excessive attention paid to the irritations and sufferings of the now along with an undervaluation of the future.

We experience things in their moment because each moment could be our last. Our senses at every instant sort through the manifold of the real and yield an interpreted slice of our environment, ready for our assessment, decision and action. This slice of reality feels all too real but it is mediated by some basic intellectual effort largely hard-coded into our faculties. Therefore, aggression, violence, contempt, hunger and pain pierce into the mantle of awareness and become the singular focus of our attention.

Reacting to this offence too immediately feels like a movement towards “the good” in so far as it may free the immediate pressure. Yet a reactive outburst may place our entire future in jeopardy, in the case of manslaughter for instance. Far beyond this tactical consideration of going to prison, abstracting from the moment’s immediacy also allows true values to surface and brings us closer to our fundamental desire to see prosperity and flourishing all around us rather than death and destruction. I like how MLK expressed this sentiment and realization by saying “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

In contrast to the false presence of a moment, an understanding of the arc of our actions let alone the arc of history requires true intellectual strain and discipline. Planted on two feet upon the ground ready to explode in rage, how is a person expected to take their irate brain and toss it years into the future so as to see, far more than avoidance of going to prison, the ridiculousness of taking offence at an insult made by someone else who is having a bad day?

Most socially devastating actions, be they violence, be they theft or whatever the crime, occur in an environment of systematic short-sightedness which venerates immediate gratification and builds the moment-up to be something which it often is not: meaningful. The culture of criminality therefore tends to thrive where people are taught to live in the now and systematically neglect living abstractly – as mediated through a sense of concept, dreams far reaching, wayward eyes that imagine a different life through the windowpane as the bus hums to work early in the morning.

On the hipster question

The jury is still out on the simple question what is a hipster? The question has suddenly become important after my move to Williamsburg has landed me smack in the middle of hipster Mecca. To further complicate the matter, a friend who I judge to be somewhat authoritative on hipsterish issues, as she was raised in Brooklyn, informed me that the definition of a hipster was not so straightforward but basically lumped together all sorts of alternative lifestyle elements, e.g., music, food, fashion, etc. Thus began my deliberation about what on earth could these people be who dressed so strange and seemed dominant in my new Williamsburg environs. One lead was provided by said friend, introducing two possible approaches to the question of hipsters:

A clean hippie?
Option a, while interesting for a moment’s consideration turns out to be a dead end. Although hipsters and hippies seem to share some attributes, such as challenging gender differences as well as the normative corporate culture through dress appearance and demeanor, the hippie movement was more substantial at the level of ideology. Hippies “sought to free themselves from societal restrictions, choose their own way, and find new meaning in life”. Moreover, hippie ideology has been described by some as a “gentle and nondoctrinaire ideology that favored peace, love and personal freedom”. Hipsters on the other hand would almost see such ideas as trite and would seek instead to move beyond ideological worldview, choosing instead to define themselves as counterculture and opposition to the norm as such. A hipster isn’t looking to transform anything, they seek only to be left alone to feel cooler than the rest of the population.

A grungy yuppie?
This brings us to the second possible definition, a grungy yuppie. Contrary to hippies, a yuppie is not defined by ideology or ultimate aim, a yuppie is defined by the transitory state of being young and professionally employed. So this definition would qualify certain yuppies with being somehow dissatisfied, maladjusted and having an attitude – as illustrated by the images of grunge, a loud fuzzy guitar sound and ingrained dirt or soot. This definition strikes truer to the mark in that it makes clear the distortive element at play in hipster culture. Hipsters aren’t a new current in values so much as a distortion and a specific interpretation on the same fundamental value and cultural dynamic which currently reigns American life: consumption as a way of life. The ethos of consumption is the fundamental mandate and enjoyment of living for yuppies as well as hipsters. Yet whereas yuppies will seek the obvious high-end brands associated with prestige and power, hipsters consume and enjoy the contrarian trinkets which are quaint and pretty but untarnished by the mark of the corporate empire which tentacled and prodding, feasts on the brains of yuppie drones all over. Through such consumption patterns, hipsters trumpet their spite for traditional social norms, notions of propriety and the corporate aesthetic. In its place hipsters celebrate their individual freedoms as made evident by contrarian fashion, and a systematic shunning of professional jobs for other lifestyle-focused occupations.

Thus, the chief characteristic of hipsters is not their counter-culture element, for all subcultures identify themselves against the norm – instead their refusal to articulate or embrace ideology is poignant. For this reason, hipsters are most often unable to really affirm the identity, and so I’ve heard it said that the mark of a true hipster is the total disavowal of the hipster identity. Now we can see why: standing for nothing, the malcontent yuppie who has patterned their personal consumption to affirm their spite for corporate culture cannot identify with a greater cause than this spite and the insistence that they derive enjoyment from skinny jeans over conventional jeans. When so articulated, the identify falls away from substance and spites itself.

Is being a hipster a copout?
In a sense hipsters represent a form of stylized refusal to compete with the social norms which structure power in American life. It’s not that yuppies stand for anything more substantial than hipsters – they don’t. Except perhaps an implicit affirmation of the American dream. However, yuppies must subordinate themselves within a tightly regimented hierarchy of values of American society. These values are largely dominated by income as an indicator of personal value and accomplishment, but they admit for other accomplishments such as degrees, publications etc. Hipsters on the other hand frown on such concrete form of competition, and therefore the allure of the hipster lifestyle is the eternal insistence that you aren’t trying in the first place, so there is no reason to be disappointed when you don’t win. That is a copout.

Are hipsters more enlightened than the majority?
In so far as hipsters recognize the fundamental emptiness of corporate and mainstream values, they are a step ahead of the great majority. They exemplify the great lie in the injunction to consume by living out alternative consumption. They prove the point that Lacoste is not necessary for style.

There are saving graces to this cultural phenomenon. As hipster culture rejects the glitz and faux-glamour of mainstream culture, it necessarily devalues the status of money and lavish spending vis-à-vis the majority. This opens up a space for appreciation of other activities usually taken for granted or overlooked by the mainstream masses. This includes a greater appreciation for visual arts, and an innovative indie music scene especially considering the lack of major funding which is quite necessary for the generation of mass-media phenomena, etc.

Transcending hipsterdom
Still, the hipster failure is that it does not go far enough. Hipster is a status not a movement. Hipsters fail to identify that the problem is being devoid of purpose—that stylized consumption, no matter how skinny the jeans, conforms to the great ravenous maw of American culture and fundamentally empowers the same structure which they scorn. To move beyond this impotence and avoid the trap of self-indulgent non-participation (perhaps out of fear of failure), an individual must transcend attitude and find a cause worth working for. Finding such a cause may or may not bring an individual full-circle—for in order to have impact and protect certain values in the grand circus of America, it is first necessary to obtain influence. And influence always requires accepting some basic rules of the game.

‘Cause tramps like us

Speaking to a friend today who’d recently quit her job not a week or so ago – she mentioned how unexpectedly delightful her newfound freedom felt. Her eyes shone mirth and a sense of adventure. She spoke of the frenzy of self-motivated activity that had been her introduction into days that were not predetermined by a contract.

She was visiting the northern city and I was having my lunch break. Sitting in that garden café I went for my shirtsleeves to ease the remnants of the summer heat, and she, noticing my clumsiness, rolled them up for me in pristine folds. Now I, liberated from my shirtly constraints, was happy for her that she was held back only by the heaviness of her purpose.

And glancing at my watch I smiled, thinking—what luxury it is to have space. We people live in small domains: apartments in big cities, little corners of the urban jungle exploding around us with sirens and lights and entertainment. Our little quotidian peace and quiet is a comforting prison—a residence, a suit and tie, an occupation—a haven in this nightmarish theme park that insists deep into the night with disjointed laughter. To rend asunder this pretense of necessity is to embrace the limits of the night. But what then?

We spoke of those next steps with conspiratorial air. And it was fitting that the shadows of a crooked tree sheltered our figures and their getaway plans from prying doubts.

“Humans have entered a new stage of evolution” claims Stephen Hawking...

...and I agree wholeheartedly.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/stephen-hawking-the-planet-has-entered-a-new-phase-of-evolution.html

It is easy to look around into human society and to appreciate just how irrelevant a concept of physical evolution – differential mortality as caused by actual genetic traits leading to a genetic, and thus physical, drift in the human species. Our people have not changed in body since we became human over 100,000 years ago. (Despite the nonsensical dreams of the social Darwinists.)

Yet we would be very confused to assume that this irrelevance of physical evolution implies the irrelevance of the concept of evolution as such in our species. Nothing could be further from the truth, for there is nothing in this world that has evolved as quickly as our particular breed of hominids. And all on a different plane from that on which evolution usually applies -- the plane of thought. We are now the organism on which the fate of the planet rests. Have we not become the destroyer and creator of worlds? Time will tell which trait is dominant and which recessive.

Our evolution has been one of culture, thoughts, dispositions – it has been the mind and the interface between mind and body that has changed so very drastically both on the individual level and on the social level. We are a computer whose hardware has not changed but whose software is updated continuously – innovating new ways of connecting with each other and producing as well as consuming information. Innovation has been the name of the game since we abrupted onto the world of thought. This unfolding of a clearing of being at a deeper essence than the blank stare of brute physicality meant that recognition in language could take flight as a very real birdling – struggling to gain control of its clumsy wings at first, and later carving up the air with the slightest calibrations of its deft feathers. These feathers have reached the moon and back, spliced into the core of existence unleashing the power of the atom, formed gods of characters to captivate the mind and soul and raise goosebumps in lovers of Shakespeare.

Weapons, gossiping, scheming, love, hatred, leaders, tyrants and freedom fighters, thoughts of the sacred and metaphysical meanderings – all these things have built up a rich substance into which every human being is now born. A baby born to day is given the same physical limitations and capabilities than one born many thousands of years ago – yet it its thrown into an ether rich in information and in which cultivated crafts abound to harness talent and further its becoming. And this makes all the difference.

All these things matter tremendously in the success of this quest for overcoming that has marked the human journey. The trouble with this evolution in the landscape of though is that it can be as limiting as hostile elements to thoughtless creatures. Devolution is possible too – and this is the downside of the information game – it produces all the trash that holds us back. It produces despots and racists and weak liberals and people enraptured with shoes. It is riddled with bugs that serve no purpose and destroy our collective potential.

For nothing constrains us individuals anymore – except the persistence of wretched habits in human society. For the same faculties that have blessed us (and spawned a ridiculous population explosion over the last thousand years) might be what condemns us to a life wasted and a planet torn apart. We are locked into our suffering, and our pleasures are the seal. And if we rupture our climate, make war, overpopulate the planet to dust and ashes, it will only be due to the vices of our culture – all because we misinformed ourselves to death.

Thus, the critical faculty is crucial in our society as it is in each individual. But the relativistic stance that would insist that there is no such thing as progress, and that all different cultures and ways of doing things are different without seeking to find how to do things better, is an unfortunate enemy to all those who would try to correct the misconceptions of the day. Sadly, anthropology is a discipline which frequently adopts an extreme relativism in view of human progress.

The master of the critical stance, it is attractive and liberating because it lashed out against many of the dogmatic vices of dominant and provincial European culture. Thus it is more advanced in this respect than many of the dominant disciplines which still preach from a supremely world-denying solipsism (which is destroying the world and has been doing so for hundreds of years).

Anthropology is able to deftly point out the crucial contradiction in most dogmas of modernity. It shows how our social claim to universally is culturally contingent, and thus misleading. But like most things – the discipline does not go far enough. It disavows all progress in the name of cleverness, rather than harness the critical faculty to progress.
The point is to embrace the contradiction wholeheartedly (in deference to Hegel) and to realize that it is because and not in spite of its very cultural contingency that there is a real quality of the universal in our fabricated global order.

Of course – this language ceases to be language of the social sciences and crosses the line into philosophy. This is discipline which at its greatest never ceases to have faith in the power of truth to light the way. No discipline pursues pure revelation so systematically. And in an “overinformed” world, where information is incessant but transmits useless commercials rather than messages we should all receive, it is not surprising that the discipline has almost become irrelevant. There are no philosophers, merely scholars of old accomplishments.

But – being able to steer a world that is fast spinning out of control to a virtuous path will take much applied philosophy. Either we bring philosophy back, reflective thought with purpose, or we bail from the ship of life like rats from a sinking ship. Certainly the political transformation in the US is a step in the right direction. But there is a world of work to do still and lots of interests mindlessly committed to perpetuating ills due to their lack of appreciation for philosophy!

Against Idolatry: Forget Michael Jackson

My mother claims that when I was a small boy and we lived in Indonesia (must have been the lateish 80’s) – I really liked Michael Jackson’s music. Most people wouldn’t think of Indonesia when you ask them for the most populous Muslim country, but that it is. So I, having been the only male around when my father was at work, held despotic rule over our driver (and other staff), overruling my mother and elder sisters even though I was but a small boy maybe 3 years old. So returning to my story – I would demand that Michael Jackson be played in the car wherever and whenever we drove. But the claims go further – apparently I would insistently pose the question “Isn’t he the best?”

Now that so many years and the man himself have passed away – I can say that I look back on this moment with a mild sense of shame. You never really know people until all is said and done. And no – Michael Jackson is not the best, in my mind his is a story that substantiates certain cruelties of life:

1) Talent (an overinvestment in one particular skill) often comes at the expense of a proper balance

2) What we value as a society is utterly confused—focusing our collective attention on this event

These two notions are deeply interconnected. Let us not forget Michael Jackson’s story is about the striving of a family for upward mobility. His father rounded up the kids and made them endlessly rehearse for a career in showbusiness. It was probably a miserable childhood, but it made him a fabulous performer who could captivate audiences. But what happens when we equate excellence in singing and dancing with all-around success? We set role models that are profoundly troubled and that should serve as a severe admonition to neglecting a proper balance. Michael Jackson’s success as a pop-star condemned him to poverty of the mind.

The result of his enormous success was a frivolous life of facial degradation – the obsession with sharpened quasi-feminine features and pasty skin. All the fame and wealth that he obtained based on the disciplinarian single-mindedness of his father was put to the service of a becoming someone else, and trying to modify his way out of his own self-image. These facts are self-evident. But it is shocking how the entire world plays dumb and completely goes silent on this profoundly disturbed behavior. Exalting beyond measure his talent and artistic graces—this veneration almost seems forced, as if the public can obviously not ignore the monstrosity of such derangement, so they channel the awkwardness into poses of adulation just to fill in the space.

The inability to recognize Michael Jackson’s failings betray a strange schizophrenia in the public’s perception. It exposes a fundamentalist approach to the notion of success – almost as an insistence that no one who could be so successful could really be so misguided. I would argue that such obstinate insistence in the righteousness and inherent value of “cheap success” is a major reason why there are so many problems which we collectively are dropping the ball on. "If it's got lipstick on, it can't be a pig!" – That’s the modern-day conviction that lubricates people through a world that becomes increasingly abrasive as it gives clear signals that “truthiness” just won’t cut it.

The reality principle always wins – and in this case, the reality is that we have just lived through a very quick “real-estate” bubble again, except the asset was Michael Jackson – a man who had not done anything noteworthy in years, but spend money, get charged with sexual misconduct, and take loans out on his ownership of old Beatles songs.

Some might say nothing is lost with this amount of frenzy. But last year the biggest news story was the death of Anna Nicole Smith. This year it will surely be the passing of a bizarre pop star. It is unlikely that these events are so much as footnotes in the annals of history – so what is the world we are overlooking?

Leonard Cohen at the Wang Theater

Leonard Cohen paid tribute to the music and I was there to see it.

With a 9-person band of excellent musicians, including a virtuous flamenco guitarist, and a “maestro of breath” who played at times the Saxophone, Clarinet and keyboard, Leonard Cohen brought to life his timeless songs in his rumbling voice, like the stirring of the very earth.

The now seventy-four year old poet and priest to many introduced his performance by saying “It has now been 15 years since I last stood on this stage – at the time I was just a 60 year-old kid with a crazy dream.”

It was a performance of reverence. On multiple occasions, the old man dropped to one knee as he sung, seemingly in awe of the flamenco guitar. And his hat was off to honor his fellow musicians who delivered their well sutured solos under the spotlight's grace.

He also recited a few of his poems, and I was struck as always by the words. A thousand kisses deep was one song that remained unsung, but its many verses were recited, a version of the endlessly worked-on verses are below—they are well worth the read:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKL3MDxMZUM

1. You came to me this morning
And you handled me like meat.
You´d have to be a man to know
How good that feels, how sweet.
My mirror twin, my next of kin,
I´d know you in my sleep.
And who but you would take me in
A thousand kisses deep?

2. I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat.
I´m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet,
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second-hand physique -
With all he is, and all he was
A thousand kisses deep.

3. All soaked in sex, and pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
We made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet -
And then consented to be wrecked
A thousand kisses deep.

Etc...