Searching for Sugar Man

Each one of us is Man, and represents the hopes and possibilities of the species. Redemption is a personal task... Life only justifies and transcends itself when it is realized in death, and death is also a transcendence in that it is a new life.

Octavio Paz (The Labyrinth of Solitude 56)

The most legendary of all stories and tales in life and those which are almost magnetic to the human spirit always fall along the similar lines of a tale of a fall and redemption. As we see the character fall into the darkness and then rise up to the light again, we can all relate to this process of the human soul.

A particular example of this, now an Academy Award winning documentary called Searching for Sugar Man depicts the story of a promising folk artist in the United States who only found success in South Africa though completely unbeknownst to him for he never received royalties. There he was bigger than The Beatles, and Rollingstones, but working in Detroit as a humble demolition worker. In the end of the twentieth century South African fans searched his story out among assumptions that he was dead and found he was actually alive, and living in Detroit. He then returned to perform in South Africa before thousands of fans in sell-out concerts. While upon returning home he still continued to live in the same house and return to his same work.

When redemption is real it's focused on character and never on wealth. The redeeming nature of Sugar Man is that first when fans thought he was dead, they came searching for the truth of this heroic character in South Africa because his music transcended his legacy. Sugar Man then experienced this new life and a personal redemption when his music became known to the world at large.

Sugar Man didn't realize that he was redeeming himself through those years of back-breaking labor. His humble character transcends his music success today as he gives his earned money to friends and family. His humble character made true redemption possible.

Redemption happens for all when the majority of the time we do not realize it is happening. Like Sugar Man, it is slow but possible, the closer one comes to death, and realizing the hopes not lived and that life can be redeemed, we like Sugar Man can also redeem the inner man first.