The Dying of the Light

It is a strange cocktail of love and selfishness we dwell upon, when truly incredible people disappear well before their time. When we cannot stomach further sorrow we find it, this sense of loss that is at once completely personal and felt for the human story as a whole.

Both Bruce Lee and Jeff Buckley died suddenly in there early thirties just as they were completing the work that would have seen their mastery revered in their own lifetimes around the world. Posthumously, the creations and abilities of both men have inspired massive audiences who can only grasp at the reverberations they left behind- their magnificent ripples in the pond of human creation.

I am especially sorry we did not get to see a later date Bruce Lee (1940-1973). I fancy that were he alive today we would not be calling him Bruce Lee, nor would his fame be centred on the films of his "younger years", rather Master Lee would be renown as bringing martial arts and eastern philosophy to a renaissance unknown in our modernity. I imagine he would have taken a form somewhat like Morihei Ueshiba, the sage-like father of Aikido, acknowledge as the finest martial artist in history- a living embodiment of somatic harmony. Bruce's unrealised later years would have been a blossoming of his philosophical side, as his study of formless form (Jeet Kune Do) expanded mental heights upon the rarest of physical perfection.

"I have not invented a "new style," composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from "this" method or "that" method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see "ourselves". . . Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back."
-Bruce Lee

The "Lost Interview". An unedited 25 minute interview with Bruce Lee on the Pierre Berton Show. Recorded on 9th December 1971 in Hong Kong. Google Video.

With Jeff it's harder to gauge how his future would have unfolded. Too quickly we think that rockstars don't age well- and hold secret solace that Hendrix did not go gentle into that good night. But Jeff was far more than a rockstar. He was a composer, a guitar virtuoso, a three-octave voice of serenity. An eclectic and multi talented musician from whom it is impossible to guess what forms, what layers of harmonies and pure streams of emotion would have manifested if he had lived past thirty-one.

I will always recall a piece on his album "Live at the Sine". During a folk-rock set someone in the audience calls out the name "Nusrat". Jeff replies by performing a spontaneous version of the Urdu Qawwali "Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai"- stating that it's original singer, Pakistani Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, "He's my Elvis".

A beautiful BBC Documentary on Jeff Buckley. Google Video.

From their art and their practice it is clear that Jeff and Bruce both had a deep spiritual awareness. An awareness which emerges as the mastery of the one- the one discipline or field- slowly becomes the mastery of the many. At this level it seems the differences in paths fall away, and the common summit of human potential is laid bare. If only they were spared the years to speak to us from these lofty heights and teach the lessons open to so few in human history- how the way can become our way.

旅に病で
夢は枯野を
かけ廻る

Sick on a journey,
my dreams wander
the withered fields.

-Basho's last poem