At some point in life, one realizes there are many smarter and more talented people than you, and although brilliant, they already happen to be dead.
A case in point is Whitney Houston, the one-time gold standard of Eighties and early Nineties inspirational mainstream music; she apparently drowned just before Valentine’s Day in an oversized Hollywood hotel bathtub. She won award after award for commercial music success. A prodigious talent, at the crest of her career, she was one of the premier female music artists of the modern era.
Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a female act at the time of its release, according to Wikipedia.
In that same year of Whitney’s break-out success, I graduated college. If one had to take bets on who would die at age 48, me or Whitney, both us born in 1963, the smart money would have been on yours truly, who was packing it down at party school Colgate University in frozen upstate New York and then at the home of cocktail time, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
This is the cautionary tale of two lives in that went into different directions. Whitney’s, she born steeped in gospel music and black spirituality, and mine, a beginning somewhat ordinary and undefined.
First of all, I’m not and never will be one of those vicarious fans who place flowers at a wrought-iron fence to say good-bye or to connect to a dear-departed superstar, one like Whitney, who floated in the world of the mega rich, unknown to the average person.
Whitney Houston leveraged her voice and heritage of musical greatness into a meteoric rise in which she simply dominated. Mind you, I can’t recall with any clarity even one piece of her considerable body or work. I only know that during those times, she was the secular Queen of Soul, her godmother being the authentic Queen, Aretha Franklin. Dionne Warwick was Whitney’s cousin; rhythm and blues flowed through Whitney’s veins at birth. Whitney ruled the pre-Internet/social media world of radio, video, albums and entertainment for an astounding 10-year period. Her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner in 1991 at the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida, during the First Gulf War is generally recognized as among the best ever sung.
Where did it go wrong for her, and why did things get better for me? Simply put, she departed her humble beginnings, and I found reservoirs of cosmic sustenance in my own traditions while she left hers.
A wiser person than I once shared with me the following observation: don’t be fooled by celebrity and its trappings. Despite these individuals who seem to “have it all,” an overwhelming majority of the famous are lousy reprobates and experience true misery if they remain wedded to the superficial. In other words, most of them disappear into the abyss of fantasy and illusion and exit reality altogether. There is no need to name names; the list is endless and one can readily find his or her own example.
What one can speculate from limited observation, and frankly it only merits limited observation is that Whitney’s marriage was a living hell, show business left her empty inside, and she sought the relief of street drugs, apparently cocaine.
Not a good strategy. Moreover, Whitney Houston had become so removed from her religious upbringing that she sought out further solace on the therapist’s couch, which led to prescription drugs Xanax and Valium. In other words, she tried, “better living through chemistry” instead of that “old-time religion.” Whitney Houston succumbed to the familiar siren call of anti-depressants. Under all these various influences, she probably became a walking zombie. On one occasion when I was in counseling myself, a therapist suggested psychotropic drugs and tellingly this was before even speaking with me for any considerable length of time. I started laughing in the middle of the session and never went back to him.
By any measurable standard, Whitney Houston’s descent shows how far she had strayed from the good orderly direction of her youth. She abandoned the tenets of heaven above which, ironically, were the foundation stone of her musical abilities.
So, at the end of the day, and not to compare myself to Ms. Houston which really is not the point, my story includes some degree of redemption of becoming centered and finding and building upon centuries of philosophical and practical wisdom, which sustains me to this day. On the other hand, Whitney Houston went in the other direction and experienced an untimely death.
I’m not so arrogant to think that it has been my efforts alone that have enabled me to reclaim some measure of dignity. However, it’s readily apparent to see that despite my own failings, which are numerous, I have been fortunate to thrive and prosper. For Whitney, unfortunately, her time ran out.
Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings. He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.
