I have long since resigned myself to the fact that Bono is probably going to leave us at a slightly younger age than his father did...IF he keeps up the utterly relentless pace of his life. The touring and publicity and his DATA work is one thing..but to keep all this up at the same time while on tour, AND juggling the responsibilties of being a husband and father to 4 kids of different ages..(though I'm told being a parent of teens ages you faster than anything
) ANd from all accounts still finding time to party hard into the wee hours of the morn on select occasions, as hard as he did in his youth...
It is a certified fact that those who chronically lack sleep for months and years on end die at a younger age than those who get a normal or near-normal amount every night. Chronic extreme lack of sleep wears your body slowly down...it makes sense. Bono has admitted he currently gets an average of 4 hours of sleep a night, (it was in the NY Post coverage of the Brooklyn show.) Heck, can you or I, with our MUCH less cluttered and chaotic lives than his, stand 4 hours of sleep a night , day in and day out, for weeks on end?
This is now, before the tour starts..and in the quietest phase of his public "political" life since he first began his now-lifelong African adventure. I can't even remember the last time he has stalked the Halls of Congress. The Republican convention was his first political foray in months. There was a period about a year and a half ago, (right around the time he made the cover of Time) when even the most polite and seasoned media commentators began to note how haggard he looked. THis was around the winter of 2002-2003 I think. He abruptly withdrew from a scheduled Congressional meeting and the reason was "family commitments" but privately it was whispered (and later publicly commented upon, I remember the stories) that his doctor had warned him to take a good long rest because he was on the verge of a complete breakdown. He really was close to collapse. What had he been doing all this time? Sitting in darkened little cubbyholes in Washington and the various capitals of the world talking to Bearucrat X about how black African lives mattered just as much as white ones and why the heck we should care. All behind the scenes, far out of even a print journalist's range. He never told us until so much later justhow many little mens' offices he knoked on the door of. So much for glory.
You know, this reminds me of the saying about how much Presidnet aage while they are in office. They become old men in 4 yrs. Bono has ceetainly kept up a President's schedule.
(And these idiots think that he doesn't deserve the Nobel Prize. Sure, and you shouldn't get the Nobel Prize for doing nothing but talking to people? Its more than that...so much more....you shouldn't always have to get thrown in jail for your beliefs to win the prize..
)
Oh well....
Really, though, I am worried for him. We have all read stories by now of how he sometimes conks out like a light in the middle of a resturaunt, plane, soundboard?!?! etc. His body is trying to tell him something. And when he developed all these medical problems the past 7 or 8 yrs I was shocked. He was always the guy in the band with the limitless energy. The allergies, the sudden catnapping, the back problems..(though maybe we could blame Ali for that?
)
He wants to milk the mos tout of every day..that's his nature, by confession. He is no spring chicken now, and his life has prematurely aged him. I'd say he's got the looks, and perhaps health,of a healthy ...man a decade older. He also has admitted having an irregular heartbeat though whether that was a cndition he was born with, we don;t know. Prob not..("Two Hearts")?
He is going to have a to accept, and we aregoingto have to accept, that someday we'll be seeing alot less of him. He will AHVE to learn to slow down, for the sakeof his health.
My, I'm cheering everyone up today am I ?Sorry....