Today marks what would have been John Lennon's 74th birthday, had he not been assassinated at the entrance of the Dakota in 1980. It's hard to not think about the vile way his life ended on a day when fans still celebrate his birth, but it wouldn't feel right not to acknowledge it. The two events are, unfortunately, inexorably tied together, just as Lennon and McCartney will always be tied together, despite the fact they only spent about nine years of their lives as songwriting partners (and really, only about four or five of those years were spent writing in the same room together).

Lennon was always straddling opposing worlds anyway: he was a diehard New Yorker who happened to be born in Liverpool; he was a proto-feminist who abused his wives; he was a cynic who preached idealism. Like all the most interesting people, Lennon was a mess of contradictions and a seemingly bottomless pool of talent.

More often than not, thinking about Lennon makes me sad and stupidly wistful: I wonder whether he would have embraced the internet, Twitter and new media. I wonder whether he would have stayed with Yoko Ono, or would have become a politician or essayist later in life (although I don't need to literally write fan fic about it). I wonder if he'd be touring the world with Paul McCartney. I wonder if he would have been stabbed by a madman in the middle of the night like George Harrison. I mostly wonder what kind of music and art he would have made. Friends and former engineers have told me that he had been going through a true creative renaissance in 1979/1980—the Double Fantasy material may have just been him dipping his toe in the water. Maybe, maybe, maybe; it'll always be maybe with him.

The Internet offers plenty of ways for you to take a moment to think about him today. You could revisit his book In His Own Write; you could cut off your foot; you could make lists of your favorite Lennon songs; you could read an essay about Beatles-induced sadness; you could read about the time Lennon bought bulletproof vests for the NYPD; you could read remembrances and vintage Rolling Stone features. You could make plans to attend a tribute show or bid on one of his guitars.

Or like us, you could just flip through the photos above, and allow yourself a moment to feel sad that you never got to meet the man who wrote "Isolation" and really meant it.