John Lennon and me.

So. After 30 years of listening to other people dictate the meaning that this day has (and the meaning that was forced to pass because of this day), I have decided to foist my opinion onto the world at large.

I do not remember the time. I was already in bed, listening to the radio, as I was wont to do to fall asleep, and heard the news. John Lennon had been shot. The second report included more details, including "multiple shots". It was then I knew he was dead.

Unfortunately, and typical for humans, ** I ** felt. I mourned. I was angry. I was sad. I was 'empty'. Initially, it was all about me.
[Don't let anyone fool you. "Me" is not just boomers !]

At my age, the Beatles, and then Lennon alone, acted as my "early warning system". He had experienced life, internalized the experience, then wrote/sang about it. His vocalized experiences became another voice in my head, telling me of a possible way to look at things that were happening to me. His writing/singing also taught me, quite passively, to listen to others. That mine was not the only opinion that counted. Because of him, I became more open. I am more willing to really listen to someone elses' view on a subject.  To understand and even change my mind.

Is Lennon responsible for who I am today ? No. I have taken what I heard, saw, and read about Lennon and have incorporated my interpretation of that into my "being". Have I become "another Lennon" ? No. Apart from the fact that he was unique, Lennon, and others I have met or read about, have given strength to the (more or less) quiet voices inside me. Making me more plastic, more flexible, more open to outside ideas and influences. I am still me, nobody else. But I am different than the me I would have become had Lennon never existed.

So I missed him, much like the professor you had for your life sciences class. He lectured you, you had a few one-on-ones, and he helped you through some tough times with a few sage options as you traveled your path. It took a little while to realize that this loss I was feeling was most likely magnified by over a billion times, as the others around the world, affected by his life (like I was) would now be affected by his death.

Briefly, that is "John Lennon and me". What I think and feel of his influence & impact on me. Yes, it is a singular point of view. How can it be anything else ? [No. It does not mean that anyone else does, or has to, feel or think this way.]

As far as I can determine, very, very, few people knew John Lennon. Yoko, Paul, George, Ringo definitely did. As did George Martin. His kids & Cynthia. Only people who spent a lot of time with him could possibly know him. Everyone else just has opinions of what he was and was like.
This especially includes the "in crowd" and interviewers who spent 10 hours with Lennon out of his entire life. They could not possibly know him.

Limited exposure to him (as in my case) has left most of humanity with "fragments of Lennon" that have been filled in (like a jig-saw puzzle) with pieces of ourselves. We naturally call the resultant mosaic "the John Lennon we knew".

The easiest person in the world to delude is "me" (ourselves).