'Any day this life gon' flash before your eyes'
Of appreciating the little moments...
Hey, y’all, sorry I missed you last week.
This piece was originally published in my 25th birthday ebook. It is another one of my favorite writeups and it brings me pleasure to bring it back here as I try to grow my substack audience. I hope you love it as much as I do.
One thing I hate on TV shows is seeing the main characters die.
I have a low tolerance for horror movies. You know, those where everyone eventually dies at the end. Like, what was even the point of watching? When Wes died in 'How To Get Away with Murder,' I instantly quit the show. I revere the delightful Viola Davis with her impeccable, hard-to-not-notice black girl magic and talent. Quitting the show felt like a tremendous loss and a great miss out. However, watching on would have been akin to reading a book I dread simply because I loved the writer's former work. It’s a tragic, fruitless endeavour.
I failed to get past another season of ‘YOU’. Why watch a painful representation of reality, only to be shaken when the characters you love randomly die? Spoiler Alert for all my ‘All American’ fans: my latest heartbreak has been the death of Billy Baker in ‘All American’. I felt the broken pieces of my heart pierce through my chest. I did not see it coming. This one is very recent, and I am still recovering. Its effects on my emotional tolerance of death led me here, amongst other events that were boiling up.
Sure, there are war movies and TV shows where I can see that all these people are toying with death, and survival is almost impossible. Money Heist is one of those. The manner in which Nairobi died was brutal, and the military send-off made nothing better at all. With a heavy heart, a lump in my throat, and teary eyes, I joined in sorrow and mourning all the fictional characters, while the real Nairobi was probably chilling and sipping on Mai Tais and Pina Coladas on the Spanish beaches. It's terrible and funny how someone can be good at eliciting such a strong emotional response from their viewers. Wickedly impressive.
See, TV shows and movies lure us into loving characters. And when we love them, they either villainize them or suddenly let them die. I believe it hurts because most tv shows and media are an extension of our reality. Or a literal reflection in their deepest essence. Hence, we find ourselves in characters, relate with them, and fall in love. These mediums show us the ideals we aspire to become. The lives we wish we had or distanced ourselves from. We live perfect versions of our lives through these fictional representations. The wave of romantic love depicted in Hollywood Cinema is a perfect example of those ideals. Sometimes, it’s exaggerated and extreme but shamefully asserts itself as the definition of the conventional order of society and how we navigate our relationships. All this shows the power of storytelling in all its extremes and outliers.
I remember watching Tyler Perry’s Acrimony. Immediately after the movie ended, I closed my laptop, stood up, and silently crept into bed. My cousin, whom I was watching the film with, was laughing at my reaction while simultaneously taken aback. I was angry. It was the following I attempted to review that movie with her. I try to look back and think about what exactly may have led to such feelings. I have gathered that I could have been angry at how perfect the imperfection of reality had been portrayed. It was the dark side of the unexpected.
On a deeper level, with Acrimony, and all these other examples, I’m convinced that what we all love to see is a good ending. A hero story. Because we relish seeing our stories end happily ever after. The stories about us but as seen on Netflix or Hulu or wherever you consume this content from.
And because this is not an expert opinion, I speak for myself. People die. We die, and eventually, we will leave this planet. This reality is unbearable for many. We dread indulging ourselves in thoughts of the inevitable evil that awaits us. TV becomes escapism— where we paint perfect realities for ourselves.
The comfort of comedy is more appealing to me. Clearly, I have no grit for shows where people die all the time. This could explain why I have rewatched The Office over six times now. Confession: I stop watching when Michael Scott leaves. In his words, “Sue me.”
The title of this piece is a famous line in AKA’s song Jika. AKA is one of the biggest multi-award-winning African rappers. Some of his accolades are three notable BET nominations. On February 10, 2023, he was shot dead in the head. I wasn’t his biggest fan, but I vibed to an impressive collection of his music. His death made that lyric ring fresh in my mind.
‘Any day this life gon’ flash before your eyes. ’
When death happens so close to us, it cuts deep. The passing of AKA sent strange shivers down my spine. The footage of his death was both horrific and too saddening to even take a second glance at. At only 35 years old, he was enjoying himself with friends at a hotel that night. Yet, in less than an hour, he became a ‘ was a rapper’ on Wikipedia.
Burna Boy echoes these lines in his song ‘Bank on It’;
‘At any time, anything can happen, oh.
Any one of us could have been Pop Smoke.’
I hate writing about death. I casually think about it, though. A lot. I see it often in these stories about us. As I reflect on my birthday and contemplate the meaning of life, the idea of death reminds me to cherish all the beautiful moments I have experienced. In all my introspections, I end up at one point- not forgetting to have fun. Why? Because any day this life can flash before our eyes. At any moment, anything can happen, and anyone of us could have been Pop Smoke.
I hope that this does not ruin any TV for you.