Malcolm X

Reading through the history of a person's life is always exciting. I particularly enjoy knowing a person better- especially when he (or of course, she) is a renowned and repected figure. One thing that I appreciate most from these is that it makes me think and reflect- a contemplation that might deviate a bit from the mainstream awareness.

Asked about Malcolm X, among the people who have heard of him, many will only know his 2 final years of breathing. All of his messages, stories, recorded speeches, and what's not- are taken only from this short period of his life. I begin to wonder what happened to the remaining 37 years God had given him? Did it not contribute to who he was in the later years? Is the period not at all significant?

To me- and I believe the same goes to many (at a personal level)- almost every incident in our lives contribute to who we are now, bad or good, positive or negative. Highlighting only the shining ones will not help as much as when a complete elucidation is given. This way we can keep ourselves in the middle way, rather than being too idealistic or in the very opposite, wrapped in despondency.

Malcolm X had a wretched history, as some prefer to call it. But this history, as wretched as it was, was the one teacher that made him who he was. The quality of the teaching was made obvious through the way he spent his last two years of life. Everything changed, and people today know him due to what he did in that two years. His message was simple, but the effect was forceful. Shouldn't we learn from his traces?