Leonard Cohen Is Dead

I congratulate Leonard Cohen. I have never understood why people grieve when someone has died. This world is not a good place. They have escaped Plato’s cave of shadows.

Nor have they left us. Just the reverse. They are closer to us now than they have ever been.

This world is especially painful to true artists like Leonard Cohen. There is a reason why he struggled with depression his entire life, and only felt it lift as he approached death. To be inspired, to the level at which you can create great art, is to perceive heaven. Each work of art is an expression of the nature of heaven, and we too experience a glimpse of it when we fully experience art. But for the artist, the turning away and back to mundane life is accordingly wrenching. They in particular know how awful this world is.