Live Fast, Die Young

Is it better to quickly burn out than to slowly fade away?

Almost in the same way that people would rather die a quick and painless death over a slow and painful one, some people would rather let their flame just quickly burn out than watch it gradually fade away. 

With fame becoming increasingly attainable, some people find it difficult to deal with the fact that it’s not everlasting.

The infamous 27 Club came to life in the early 1970s with the deaths of some of the most prominent faces of rock and roll, all at the age of 27. In the years and decades after, people began to notice this pattern enough to the point where it earned its own name as the club everyone was dying to get into – but nobody wanted to be a part of.

In September of 1970, Jimi Hendrix died at the age of 27; Janis Joplin’s death followed a little less than a month later with a heroin overdose, followed by Jim Morrison in July of 1971, also at the age of 27. These deaths gained a lot of attention not only because of the prominence of these artists at the time but also because their deaths were all in the span of just a few months. Nearly two decades later, this pattern continued with the iconic face of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain’s passing. Though he suffered from substance abuse and heroin addiction, that wasn’t the cause of his death–-and in his suicide note, written in red ink, he wrote the famous lyrics from a Neil Young song: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” 

All of these singers were transformative in their time, which is likely why their coincidental deaths gathered so much attention—but many wondered if they were really coincidental. For most people, the 27 Club is tied to the “rockstar lifestyle” ideal — one commonly associated with excess alcohol and other substance abuse and some sort of widespread fame.

We live in shades of grey and periods of despair. A quick dopamine hit could take it all away if we let it. But it’s a slippery slope. A slope that some of us have blindly fallen victim to in our unaware teenage years without fully realizing the real dangers and lasting effects of it. Just because we’ve glorified this lifestyle into a certain “aesthetic” doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t proceed with caution. 

Let go of what you think should happen and open yourself up to the possibility of what could happen. Often, we disassociate our experiences with what it means to truly live, but a life lived in the fast lane can come with a price. Embracing the risk and lack of permanence in life and creating a balance between spontaneity and responsibility is the key to living fast but not dying young.

Strike Out,

Elise Archer

Boca Raton

Elise Archer is a Content Writer for Strike Magazine Boca. She has a passion for everything creative- and she’s a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. If you can’t reach her, she’s either busy shopping, lost somewhere, or writing. But if you would like to:  elisearcher111@gmail.com or on Instagram @elisearcherr