Prince Philip died today. So did some Rapper DMX dude. The day Michael Jackson died, Farrah Fawcett also died. Depending on your interest, one or the other meant more to you. In general, though, I would say Prince Philip was more famous than Rapper DMX, and Michael Jackson famous more than Farrah Fawcett, at least at the time he died. I wonder if they had a chance to reflect on it, would either DMX or Farrah would have complained, “C’mon man! Couldn’t you have waited one more day to die?”. To die in the spotlight rather in someone’s death shadow. Such a curse for fame. But does it exist?

That’s obviously a hard question to answer. We could speculate, but until we are on our deathbed, if we were so lucky to have time to reflect a bit before we die, we wouldn’t know whether we would care about that among all the things one could care about just before death. It might only be reasonable to do this experiment in the after life, like speaking to someone’s soul in Heaven (or Hell), though I would guess there’d be far more things prioritized for one there than even this question. But all that aside, let’s take the only option we have, which is to speculate.

How would you feel if you died when someone more well-known, and likely more cherished or beloved, than you died? That might be someone among your social circles, or some celebrity more famous than you are as a celebrity. Would you care? And if you did, how would you feel?

For me, I neither have fame nor a big social circle. I wouldn’t particularly care, to be honest. I’d have far too many topics to do last thoughts on! But speculating on being famous like I sometimes want to be, which is speculating on my speculations for this experiment, I still wouldn’t think I would care. I’d be grateful enough for my fame that in my dying moments, I would just be grateful for it all. In fact, I don’t think I would even be “narcistic” enough to even care if half of the world’s famous people died on the same day that I wouldn’t even make the tragic list for that day! I’d just still be grateful for all I had in life, convince myself I had left things and people in my wake in good circumstance, if I had any doubts, and leave it at that. I don’t think I’d even take time to consider my regrets as many do, because there wasn’t going to be anything I would be able to do about them except to feel bad for the rest of my (short) life! So why bother?

But all that’s just me. What about you?

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