I’ve always felt that, in a thousand years or so, it is entirely possible that somebody like Michael Jackson could be looked back upon with a reverence and legacy akin to that of Jesus, a deity, king, or other elevated form. No, seriously, I mean it. I can’t think of a single person’s face that is more recognizable on the planet. He has hundreds of thousands of fans from all walks of life. He fits into the hero narrative, the celebrity narrative, the fallen hero narrative, the persecution narrative, the redemption narrative, and countless others. He lives in a remote palace-type resort called “Neverland.” His messages (ie. songs) are that of togetherness, peace, diversity, and generally being a badass. And in the context of a society that values and idolizes ‘celebrity’ and ‘music’, he is up there at the very top. What do you think society 1,000 years from now will think of weekly mass gatherings of sometimes tens of thousands of people, all eyes focused on a single person, reciting words in poetic form and with melody? Also not to mention the level of globally accessible and distributable documentation we have today, differentiating this time from any before. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. And granted, this is hypothetical crazy talk. But if I could look into the future and see, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it all panned out that way.