Friday, December 9, 2016

Who’s next?

Greg Lake passed away on Wednesday, the 7th of December, 2016. Leonard Cohen left this world exactly one month before that. Someone from those who are still with us, who is still walking upon this earth and enjoying its benefits, is already destined to be the next. Who is going to be the one?

Whoever he or she will turn out to be, we will grieve when we hear about it, and remember all the things that s/he did for us: music, movies, books, pictures, sayings – they did that all for us and we all remained with all these. They did what they had to and left us. But just look, just think about how are these "nerds" are important for all of us! What would we do without them, dammit!

There was a time when our planet, wartime wounds bleeding and handmade ulcers boiling, was lit by a ray of Universal Grace, and babies started to appear on its surface. They were destined to grow, and to make many millions of people think; they were chosen to bear the happiness and joy into those peoples’ hearts, and to show to the future generations which are yet to stand the hardest life tests not yet seen tests, that life is still beautiful, and something valuable is still going on here.

It is because of those then-newborn-babies we will say after a few decades: "How lucky we are that we were not been born two centuries earlier", or "what will our children's children see in their time?". But let’s not please our vanity thinking that we are luckier than others. Believe me, someone in his time was reading a new novel by Dostoyevsky called “The Idiot” for the first time and was equally happy to feel involved in this era; other was talking to Shakespeare, and another shook Bach’s hand – both then obviously pondered long on this subject and did not immediately feel the greatness of the moment. Someone will happen to dwell in the midst of what we can only dream of today, and they will be happy in their own way....

But, losing our heroes today, can we be sure that a worthy replacement is on its way? A lot of young and talented individuals appear in the fields of arts, cinema and literature, but in the music, I personally do not see anything that would be able to make at least a quarter of the qualitative changes that occurred in the second half of the last century. Old people continue doing what they came into this world for. After completing their mission, they line up in front of the Exit, waiting for their names to be called.

We cannot blame the number 2016 for the fact that it is greater than any integer in the range of 1940 to 1950 by more than 60 or 70, sometimes even more. Bare arithmetic, you know. Biology is also not guilty in the fact that the organisms are subject to its laws. And a high level of Western life does not make some sort of wrongdoing. Everything is subject to some definite laws. We just feel too sorry about the fact that our Pushkins and Shakespeares, our Cervanteses and Mozarts departure and we have to learn about it and to count more and more frequently appearing sad note with the chilling lettering – «R.I.P.». But all these great people are great because of their works. Their main mission – to bring happiness and joy to the people –considered accomplished at some point. By whom? Probably, by those who assigned that mission to them. When the mission is accomplished, they leave us. Someone having already passed the 70th mark, others well below their 30’s, but they all did something to us, something we will be thankful for until the very moment when our names will be called light up in the queue waiting at the “Exit” gate. Who knows, maybe even after that moment the music of David Bowie, George Martin, Keith Emerson and his bandmate Greg Lake will be accompanying us?

Therefore, let the meaning of the question "Who is next?" be changed in the way the meaning of the title of Greg Lake's "C'est La Vie" song has today. Suppose that it means “who’s next to come to Earth with a mission to make the world a better place?”.

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