²² And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

²³ And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

²⁴ Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

I was walking the quiet and dark roads of the Himalayas at 8,800 feet above sea level, talking to my mother about how the book of Genesis describes Eve being made from Adam’s rib. I do not share the Christian religion but am a self-proclaimed theologian and have my own thoughts and opinions about this version of how humans came to be. The thought that passed through my head as a flash of lightning is how Adam’s loneliness was noticed and reciprocated by God, his father. Whereas when another son asked his father for a companion due to similar reasons of loneliness, he was not only denied but berated and abused. This other son is the unnamed “Frankenstein’s monster”, who was much like Adam, created by a creator without much say in the matter.

In Genesis, we see Adam being perceived into the world; God, the all-knowing father recognise the loneliness of his son and gives him the gift of companionship through Eve. Humans, created in the image of the lord himself, proceeded to establish humanity as we see and experience today.

Since we’re an image of God, humans are inherently beautiful beings, not just physically but fundamentally as a species; we are “allowed” to exist and “allowed” to create more of our kind. This luxury, however, was not awarded to the “Frankenstein’s monster”, who was not created in the image of God or Man but rather in the image of egotistical mania of a man trying to play God.

The Creature was created as a way to show the world, “Look, I am a man, but I can play at being God” The whole idea that Mary Shelley brings to the table is “Does being god only mean you can create life?” The monster shows us it is not. The monster shows us that creating life is actually the easiest part of being god; the difficult part is perceiving the needs of your creation, paying attention to their needs and fulfilling them in the way that is best for them.

This is where Victor falls short however, when after days and days of practise the Monster finally learns that there is no one in the world quite as “monstrous” as him, he does not resort to violence directly, he asks Victor for a simple boon, “Now that you’ve created a monster like me, give me a companion who may not see me as such, who will not recoil”, but since Victor was no god, and the monster no image of god, he was denied.

This single refusal leads to the eventual downfall of Victor Frankenstein and serves as the major plot point for Frankenstein. Victor realised he could create life but could not “control” it in the sense he wanted to; he had taken the most beautiful pieces of a human and stitched them together, yet he could only “play” at being god, not be the actual god, who recognised Adam’s suffering long before even Adam fully understood them.

Men have long wanted to play at being god, but Frankenstein starkly puts into perspective what actually entails bringing a life into this world, no matter the method used.

In the end, to conclude my thoughts, Mary Shelley, at the age of 18, wrote what most of us can’t even perceive: the horrors of creating something and having it slip away from you.

I have been thinking about writing this article for a solid week now because the number 1 question in my head these days is, “how come a man, who lived a life surrounded by so many people was left so utterly alone his whole life”.

1958-1968/69
As I discussed in my previous article, the Jackson family was being worked to the bone by their allegedly abusive father Joe Jackson so they could break free from the generational curse of being black in 1960s America. The abuse and exploitation is all too well known, with Michael himself saying that “I am scared of my father to this day” and many other statements which show the extent to how much his psyche was damaged permanently.

Michael also famously wrote a letter to Bill Bray, his bodyguard stating, ‘Joseph never ever had time for me, he only saw me as a way for him to make money. And as you know, mother was a perfect mother, but I never was with her. My childhood was on stage... What I'm simply trying to say is: thank you for being a father’

Combine this with La Toya’s book [source] which goes on to say things like, ‘Joe wore a character trait that was incapable of sympathy, empathy or compassion. He often retrieved one of his hand guns from his firearm collection and threatened to kill his children and during his refractory rages, he would force his sons to wear boxing gloves and fight each other.’

Sadly, La Toya has recalled instances of the sexual abuse she faced at the hands of Joe Jackson as well, both in her book and interviews, “When everybody was asleep, Joe would sneak into the living room, tuck in next to La Toya and Rebbie and molest them. What further broke La Toya’s heart, was that her mother Katherine uncovered the defilement of her daughters, but chose to quieten, instead of denouncing Joe and having him arrested and sentenced for his paedophile infractions.”

I could attach more testimonies about Joe, however, this gives us a clear picture of how the Jackson family was terrorised by their patriarch.

To add to this terrorism, Joe Jackson was enabled by Katherine. As much as she was a good mother in her children’s words, she was also an enabler because Joe’s abuse extended beyond his children to his wife, evident in how he cheated on her just to spite Jackie, ‘Joe’s writhing jealousy towards Jackie, who had an attractive appearance, heightened incessantly. Jackie received the most attention from female fans while the Jacksons were on tour and Joe would pick on him and punch him so hard he’d often lose consciousness. Joe ended up seducing and impregnating Cheryle Terrell, a neighbour in their new home in Hayvenhurst, Encino in California, because of her strong liking for Jackie. During a trip to Senegal, Joe went on to brag to his children about impregnating Cheryle and siring a child named Anna.’

1968/69 - 1975/76
After a tumultuous set of formative years, Michael along with the Jackson 5 got signed to Mowtown, after they were discovered by Diana Ross (allegedly). Diana, is also a mythical creature in Michael Jackson life’s lore. Two statements which come to the forefront when I think of Diana Ross and Mike are the following: [Diana Ross is]’my mother, my sister, and my lover all rolled into one’ from his 1988 autobiography, Moonwalker. And his will stating if his mother Katherine Jackson is unable to care for his children, next in line for their custody will be Diana Ross.

This is enough evidence to say comfortably that there was no bad blood between them as Michael loved his kids and would only give someone access to them if he truly trusted them. However, as stated by Michael in one of his private leaked calls with Glenda Stein, ‘I thought I was with Diana, that was just in my own mind’. Combining that with Diana’s sometimes inappropriate comments about Michael and ongoing public speculation about the nature of their relation leads me to believe this is a facet of his life which is heavily overlooked and shaped his perception of love in a lot of ways.

1994/3-1996
I know, jumping from 1970s to 90s is huge, but in this article I want to focus on the major relationships that MJ had hence I am moving on to Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of King of Rock, Elvis Presley. I had a huge Elvis Presley phase in college, I went through his songs, his life history, his controversial age gap with his first wife Priscilla Presley and read about his twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley who passed away shortly after his birth whose “shadow” he felt throughout his life. What I did not look too deeply into was the fact that when he passed away at just 42, the person who found him was his 9 year old daughter Lisa Marie Presley.

Lisa Marie, not only carried Elvis’s striking looks but also the deep seated trauma of discovering her beloved father dead at such a young age until her ultimate demise on January 12, 2023, at the age of 54. Despite people online speculating that MJ and Lisa’s marriage was a publicity stunt to divert attention from the 1993 sexual abuse allegations against MJ, I believe their love was true. My logic points me to the fact that MJ had been seeking out Priscilla Presley’s company in hopes of crossing paths with Lisa. Lisa also detailed her relationship with Michael in her book, a great summary of which I found here. I do believe, Lisa had a ceiling with her love, Mike we know, had issues around body image and being loved enough and with Lisa’s traumatic childhood, I believe it was a very sad scene of “right people wrong time”.

1996 - 1999
Throughout Lisa and Mike’s tumultuous marriage, Debbie to me looks like a looming shadow who promised the most essential thing Michael wanted, kids. The thing that blows my mind is her own admission that she was complicit with fueling MJ’s addiction stating “I was basically as bad as [Klein],”, “I regret that. I will regret it. And I am so sorry that I participated in it.”

It is common knowledge, that Debbie performed more of a transaction than marry Jackson. While Lisa Marie was seeing Michael slowly slip off into drugs due to Dr. Arnold Klein’s extremely aggressive treatment Debbie was on the sideline all along promising children and looking the other way knowing how highly potent drugs were being given to MJ.

This comes full circle with how Katherine was an enabler to Joe’s anger and Debbie was the enabler to MJ’s harmful drug addiction. Debbie being complicit in MJ’s drug abuse was such a revelation his family was shaken too.

To conclude this article, I want to firstly state, I am not trying to diagnose any celeb with anything. All I see is a pattern of a “ceiling of love” being hit over and over again. Ceiling of Joe Jackson’s love which extended as a manager not as a father, of Diana Ross’s which hit after she realised her age gap with MJ (allegedly, I again am not sure what the nature of their relation was), of Lisa Marie who left when she noticed MJ slipping into the shoes of her father and of Debbie who I think hit the ceiling as a fan.

The whole ordeal of Michael’s love pattern is jarring to read about knowing how the only thing he wanted was being loved and experiences true selfless love, the only thought that brings some comfort is his kids, who carry his legacy forward gracefully even today. However, I am left to wonder how through all of this, a man with 8 siblings and parents was left fending for himself when everyone around him was working against him. I am not painting out Michael to be a helpless human, sure he was addicted to substances which were aggravated by the doctors and people around him, but one has to stop and wonder, where was the Michael Jackson Estate, which is funding the Movie Michael right now when the legend was alone and suffering?

While the whole world talks about his prayer like devotion to his craft and iconic dance steps, I am left wondering how everyone failed him when he was grappling with addiction so severe it ultimately took his life. Right now, the whole MJ estate is reaping the profits from the Michael Movie success and the consequent streaming boom in his songs (which is not wrong) I find it hard to understand how the entire family and the world glossed over La Toya’s comments about her father, how Diana Ross pulled her name out of he movie and the movie makers glossed over his pain med addiction.

With the recent Cascio Case it is apparent that everyone thinks, MJ’s legacy can be and fit into whatever mould they so please, whether the mould is the estate or the mould is the Cascio family’s version.

To end, I just want to attach a heartbreaking statement from the book “Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days” by Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard, “Because all I felt was anger. That overtook everything else. I sat there with all these people getting up onstage and talking about what a great friend Michael was and how much he meant to them, and the only thing I could think was: Where were they?…Where were all these people when he needed them?” – Bill Whitfield

Like the whole world right now, I am absolutely taken by the global phenomenon that Michael Jackson was and almost every article describing him starts from one person, Joseph Walter Jackson, his father.

Joseph has been painted as multiple things by the people, abusive father, a necessary evil needed to create a great star, a person who just wanted out from his traumatic life and so on and so forth, however, these are extremely subjective opinions and I think, the truth is, we would never be able to condense Joseph Jackson into one singular word.

Apart from figuring out his role and impact on the Jackson family another thing that intrigues me about him is, how did he know how to package and brand and market the Jackson brothers?

A quick read through of this life tells me he had aspirations to become a performer too and played the guitar with his brother Luther Jackson but that didn’t lead to anything for him.

I find it hard to believe that he knew how the code to “crack” Hollywood by having a short lived guitarist career. After pondering on it even further here is what I think happened.

In the 1970s-80s there was nothing like “viral”, you couldn’t purposefully release something for the sole purpose of it going viral (similar to how family YouTube challenges, at-least the problematic ones function), but there was always the “tried and tested” method. If one thing Joe Jackson’s boxer career (again short lived) taught him, I believe it was the gift of repetition. He took the blue print of famous from back then and fit his kids into it by hook or crook even if it led to them breaking (psychologically).

This repetition can also be seen reflected in Michael as well, he was a known perfectionist who wanted to repeat his art again and again until he perfected it.

However, as idealist as it sounds, repetition was not the only thing. Joe Jackson implemented the human nature of “trial and error” too. He didn’t only force his kids to practise relentlessly what he thought would sell but also put them in all the locations where he thought he could sell. Whether it be school events, local talent shows or strip clubs (allegedly). In the era where “oh long form content should go on YouTube” and “oh short form hook based content is for Instagram”, Joe Jackson treated every place as his content platform.

Hence, I arrived to my conclusion that instead of being a talent wiz or a visionary genius, Joe Jackson was an obsessive practitioner of repetition + exposure + trial-and-error.

As I said in my previous article, MJ’s innocence was something I wanted to confirm by myself and after going through all the trial documents, the FBI files released post his passing and multiple videos on the same, I found something about this body language which single handedly convinced me of his innocence.

The start of my train of thought is an old tik tok trend called “asking my husband to hold our baby at his hip”, the trend was exactly what the name suggests. Mothers asking their husbands to hold the baby at the hip curve and husbands failing at it because they do not have a natural hip curve.

Then recently while researching I came across pictures of MJ holding kids and in some pictures he’s holding them at his hip! which now we’ve established is not common for men. This type of behaviour I believe can only be exhibited by a man very comfortable with handling and taking care of children as mothers hold their babies in the same way so they can work around the house while keeping an eye on their kid too. This method of holding babies is so common that people have even invented baby carries with this concept in mind.

Another thing is whenever someone runs to hug MJ his hand FLIES up to their head/nape which is a supportive in nature since babies have floppy necks. As an elder sibling myself I learnt how to hold babies at 5 and I think MJ learnt this supportive and protective gestures from his own siblings and most of all his mother and rather than applying it to babies only, he provided comfort to everybody by stroking their heads and supporting their heads up. We all know how his dad was and it’s only natural that he would want to be with his mother and also end up imbibing her personality and child rearing techniques.

Another thing pointed out by one of my lovely reddit commentators is, how in this video MJ is picking the hair of one of his neice’s/nephew’s and is almost like a black mom.

Another thing, pointed out in the comments is a very famous video of MJ where kids are pushing him in the pool at Neverland and he’s yelling “I just took a shower and I washed my hair thoroughly”. Any pedo would never give that much power over himself to a child he wants to molest, that’s not what’s in their nature, their nature is to dominate and domineer.

I also do not want to gloss over the fact that MJ did say that he feels better suited in company of children and animals and that is one of the most common tactics used by pedos to make children they’re targeting like they’re “special”. Certain phrases they use are “you are special”, “you are mature for your age” and “you understand me”. But my argument here is that Michael never singled out kids. His body language towards them was just nurturing and nothing else. He genuinely wanted to make every kid in the world feel special and that’s whats heartbreaking, they hit him right where it hurt and it eventually killed him too.

Rest in Peace King of Pop 👑.

The recent Michael movie has thrown me back into a MJ fueled mania. When I say “thrown me back” I mean this has happened before, but not as intensely because now we have the blessed gift of Instagram reels and hours and hours worth of “critic” about everything MJ ever did.

”MJ saved kids from the Epstein Island!”
”MJ was a creep and slept with 12 year old boy”
“No actually MJ was age regressed and was trying to recreate his childhood”

Truth be told, I remember, when I was quite young and I came to know about MJ’s Neverland Ranch I was weird out. I could not imagine the actual King being obsessed with Peter Pan because I personally think Peter could take it a bit lighter on wanting the kids to be young forever like a plastic surgeon from K-pop hell. And then when eventually the DOJ finally released the sick Epstein files I remember making this connection instantly,

But, that’s the topic I will break down in my next article. For this article I want to introduce the King of Pop to the actual crowned Queen of France in 1700 our very own Ms. If They Do Not Have Bread Let Them Eat Cake (allegedly).

Look, you might think this is the most wacky comparison anyone has every made but let me cook.

We all know how MJ’s childhood was traumatic, the man has spoken about it multiple times and it’s heartbreaking. Marie Antionette, another figure I am also quite taken by due to her extravagant and quite Pinterest worthy taste also was bred and wed to be a pawn in the larger picture of Monarchy Era Love Island, except there was no love just an “Heir and a Spare”. So you can imagine how her life was full of stress when she was thrust into the spotlight after getting her whole identity ripped from her, her nation, her language and her comfort zone at just 14.

Now let me tie this all together to the point I am making, Maladaptive Daydreaming.

I am no stranger to this condition as I have wasted hours upon precious hours daydreaming about being born rich, being talented, being an orphan and what not for one simple purpose, to escape from my hellish childhood. As a child I had nowhere to escape from my abuser but inside my mind. I still do that today at 23.

Now, it is not hard to think that a condition which mostly affects teens and younger people with certain predisposition affected high stress individuals like MJ and Marie Antoinette. The difference between them and a middle class Indian school going girl is, they had butt loads of money. If MJ could maladaptive dream about going to Neverland and “saving” kids, he very well could (and did) that. If Marie could dream about being a simple peasant girl living a simple life, she very well could (and did) that exact thing.

What we claim as eccentric may very well be a very progressed version of a condition only recently named and accepted.

This is to say that I do not claim to be a medical practitioner or anything adjacent to that, just a person who didn’t have an ideal childhood and can maybe understand building her own Barbie dream house one day.