Have You Seen My Childhood?
There’s a story of Michael Jackson that I’ve been rattling my head around over the last few weeks. Given the nature of our society, we’ve become quick on passing judgements and verdicts on people. We judge people by their actions. But ignore the reason behind these actions. In popular culture, reason overrides emotions. Yet it’s clear that emotions drive impulses. Impulses are absurd. absurdity is narcissistic. And narcissism is egomaniacally counter-productive to common sense. There’s no sanity, when, instead of reasoning, we use emotions as a measurement yardstick — something we’re so fond of in today’s culture. The author, Mark Manson, has written a lot about this in his book “Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope.” And I’ve, in terms of reference, regurgitated some of his ideas here.
The problem, too often, is that we don’t understand the conditions that lead to the actions people take. Or how they emanate. Our world today is trivialised. And in spite of where you find yourself, there’s a public court of judgement lined up to decide your fate. In post-modern theory, it’s been explained that there’s an infinite way of explaining the world. Probably a concept borrowed from Nietzsche, post-modernists believe that our views and attitudes of the world can be related to the conditions that shape us, shape our personality. And our very principles of life. There’s a specific post-modern theory that I take my heels off for — Positionality. In a narcissistic world of judgements and public opinion, positionality helps us to understand the world better, understand ourselves, understand the people with whom we live. It gives us the chance to consider context when we lack one.
Positionality subjects all views or actions to personal perspectives that determine our truth and values driven by our experiences. Positionality helps us understand the reason behind the actions we see and how they develop over time. Just as hyper-politics in the study of political science is concerned with the variance in our perspectives, positionality helps us understand the influence of our identity in shaping our understanding, behaviour and interpretation of the world around us. Our lived experiences, for the most part, impose values on us. They define our external actions. How we assert ourselves. How we treat people and our view and place in the world. It helps us understand that there are conditions that shape people. That make us who we are. That determine the lives we live. And until we dig deeper, harder with more curiosity and take a genuine interest in people, our judgements of them will always be opaque. And flawed like a giant wall of no end.
It was a deprived childhood that shaped, Michael Jackson — the king of pop. An abusive father. And the early success that cornered him to a life that hunted him throughout. At the age of 6, he became one of the most famous childhood stars. Among his brothers, he was the excellent sheep — immense talent with an iconic voice that would soon position him as the greatest pop star in the world. With early success, he spent most of his childhood in musical concerts and studios recording songs and entertaining adults as his friends. What most of us know as childhood was for him neglect, control and an abusive father that cowed him into a man that never grew up even in his 40s. While success is freedom for some of us, it was a for him a prison that locked him in shadows he resented but represented for album sale.
Michael became a victim of his talent very early in his life when his father formed the Jackson 5 in 1964. Way before he climbed to the top of the music industry, he had eyes on him as a prodigy — something that subjected the young Michael to brutality from his father who was more concerned about wealth, power and fame at the expense of his children.
Michael, not by choice, was an abnormal kid with an abnormal childhood, spending most of his time after school recording songs. He later recalled in an interview that “I would do my schooling which was three hours with a tutor and right after that I would go to the recording studio and record, and I’d record for hours and hours until it’s time to go to sleep”. This was childhood for him.
Unlike most of us, he didn’t have friends he could play with. Or go to a party with except the usual dance competitions and pillow fights with his brothers at his house. That was it. Only allowed to perform to black gatherings and running shows across America, he led the famous Jackson 5 and made headways in America. A few years later, his craft made him one of the most respected people to have ever lived. And this was at the peak of racism in America. He found himself caught up in the firing line of two cultures: the culture of oppressive white America and the stagnation of childhood in his home.
The success of Michael in the ensuing years of his childhood is one of a celebrated one. He was a king of his realm. Adored. Admired. But even in those moments, he remained haunted by memories of his childhood and the condition he was brought up in. Here’s a man that was exposed to brutality as a child, first in his own house and later in bars performing to make ends meets for his family along with his brothers. These are of no external observation of his life, time or career. They dripped down from his mouth like rainfall from the sky. In one of his songs, actually called childhood, he wrote:
“I’m searching for the world that I come from/ ’Cause I’ve been looking around/ In the lost and found of my heart…/No one understands me/ They view it as such strange eccentricities…/ ’Cause I keep kidding around/ Like a child, but pardon me…”
In childhood, he cried out that before we judge him, we’d have look at how he was brought up. Robbed of childhood and consumed in an adult world as a teenager, Michael always craved being a child. He wanted the experience that most kids have. He wanted to do fun activities and have freedom as a kid. As an adult, he expressed so much admiration for the fictional character Peter Pan — a boy with a never-ending childhood. A boy who can fly but never grows up. He symbolises childhood freedom and innocence. And in Michael’s world, there couldn’t be a better role model to look up to.
This is the character that Michael Jackson, even at the epicenter of success identified with — something he always wanted to be in his undying search for freedom, happiness and an unhindered childhood. In the fictional story of Peter Pan, the boy lives on an Island called Neverland. To exemplify this, Michael created his home and named it Neverland to reemerge with his childhood and have opportunities to play with kids like one of them. Michael expressed that he totally identifies with Peter Pan because of his yearning of being a kid that he never was. Because of his love for kids and identifying as one of them, he had two major lawsuits that cost him millions of dollars. Given his childish and myopic attitude, our society being what it is, one would assume, he was a complete idiot.
But this assumption is a lack of information, lack of empathy and understanding about who the man was. You’d condemn him, but as Dale Carnegie wrote “Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”
Yes, Michael was childish, but it takes character to understand the reason behind his childish actions. Before you judge me, he once said, try hard to love me, look within your heart then ask, have you seen my Childhood? These are essential elements that we must look out for before assuming the things we assume about people. They are things we must explore before saying the stuff we say. It helps us to know people better, understand them, and the conditions that serve as a driving force for their displayed actions or attitudes.
The story of Michael Jackson gives us that chance. It makes us realise that when we’re judging people, our perspective alone is not enough, we must look deep within them and understand what drives their action. Like, Henry Ford once wrote, “the secret of success lies in our ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”
As we’ve established, the question of judgement is a question of emotions, not reasons. Reason runs on logic and emotions run purely on irrational impulses. And completely fucked up beliefs we convince ourselves about the actions of people. It takes understanding to step in people’s shoes to reason with them through their actions. We can’t do it if we don’t take time to know people. To understand who they are, where they grew up and their positionality. This is why we must wear the love jacket and filter it through empathy — genuine LOVE.
