Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

Hello World Wide Web and to all the nonexistent people reading this post.

Today I watched a very powerful documentary called Montage of Heck that chronicled the life and eventual demise of Kurt Cobain.

The thing that really struck me was how predestined it all seemed.  Even with the cheery videos of Kurt as a toddler, laughing and giggling and playing games, he grew up to be such a sad man that viewed disaster as being inescapable.  Kurt seemed to feel everything a little too intensely, taking criticism and praise as being a personal attack on not only his band Nirvana but also on the quality of his person.  His utter fear of being humiliated or disliked caused him to be under such an intense amount of pressure, that slowly but surely rose to a boil and eventually led to his suicide.

Even though I knew Kurt Cobain's story prior to watching the film, I felt a glimmer of hope while watching the footage of Kurt and his baby daughter, Frances.  The intense love he felt for her was so apparent not only in the way he held and played with her, but also in his writings.  It seemed like Frances was the harbinger of sobriety and normalcy, a sign of a possibly positive outcome to the mess that had been Cobain's life.  He quit drugs for a short while and even began to appear better, taking more care in his appearance and looking generally healthier.

However, it didn't take too long for the pressure to reach him once again.

I found this film incredibly depressing because even with the immense love Kurt held for his daughter, his music, and his wife, nothing could stop his crash.  It was as if something inside him couldn't handle this world, and therefore there was nothing anyone could have done to change his fate.  Even though he had once been a giggly baby boy himself, he ended his own life in a pit of utter despair.  If only someone or something could have helped him.

This documentary scared me.  It made our destinies seem random; even with millions of people who love you, sometimes you can never truly be happy.  Even if you were a happy child, you can be inherently unhappy and spend the rest of your life constantly anxious and upset.  You could have everything you ever dreamed of, and still remain so utterly depressed that you would take your own life.  I can't think of anything that terrifies me more.

"I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away." - Kurt Cobain's suicide note