Saturday, June 17, 2006
Celebrity makes one a target
There is a remarkable allure associated with fame and celebrity. Many chase after that and even fifteen minutes of fame lasts a lifetime and gets better and better with every retelling. I can understand the seductive lure of the cameras and the lights can be quite intoxicating but, I like anonymity better. What better way to walk the streets than if one is unknown? No one targets you for anything. There is real danger in being a celebrity, a famous person, somebody notable. The creeps and the wierdos come and want to touch you and talk to you and be seen with you. The great artist/musician John Lennon succumbed to the deranged imaginings of John Hinckley who put a bullet that ended not only his life but his brilliant career as a musician. The same thing happened to Princess Diana of Wales who was hounded to her death by camera-wielding paparazzi who eventually caused her accident in Paris, France.
How anyone could live without the freedom of being able to move about without an entourage and bodyguards, go to the park for long walks, enjoy a beer or two at a local pub is simply incredible to me.Does an ant have thoughts of fame and celebrity? Does living a simple, anonymous life, just doing the same thing over and over again cause a bee to have anxious nights dreaming of becoming a Queen Bee? An ant colony is perfectly coordinated with a rigid hierarchy and it has adopted this model for millions of years very successfully. An ant lives a simple life, anonymous and un-celebrated. She is not famous, she has no one chasing after her and yet she lives a full life dedicated to the survival and propagation of her colony.
Maybe it is our individuality which is responsible for this need to be famous, to be a celebrity, to be chased by photographers and autograph-hunters. As individuals we want to stand out. We modify our faces and bodies to conform to a standard of beauty and grace, we take performance-enhancing drugs to become better athletes. In the end celebrity does fade and no one remembers. No one remembers the child stars who were adored as precocious children but lost that allure upon growing up. It is a big blow to their egos as well as their pocketbooks when no one wants to pay to see them perform. All in all, I still choose the simple life, anonymous, free, unfettered, unrestricted and plain.
Cool blogs basking in the blog park. Visit these pages:
How anyone could live without the freedom of being able to move about without an entourage and bodyguards, go to the park for long walks, enjoy a beer or two at a local pub is simply incredible to me.Does an ant have thoughts of fame and celebrity? Does living a simple, anonymous life, just doing the same thing over and over again cause a bee to have anxious nights dreaming of becoming a Queen Bee? An ant colony is perfectly coordinated with a rigid hierarchy and it has adopted this model for millions of years very successfully. An ant lives a simple life, anonymous and un-celebrated. She is not famous, she has no one chasing after her and yet she lives a full life dedicated to the survival and propagation of her colony.
Maybe it is our individuality which is responsible for this need to be famous, to be a celebrity, to be chased by photographers and autograph-hunters. As individuals we want to stand out. We modify our faces and bodies to conform to a standard of beauty and grace, we take performance-enhancing drugs to become better athletes. In the end celebrity does fade and no one remembers. No one remembers the child stars who were adored as precocious children but lost that allure upon growing up. It is a big blow to their egos as well as their pocketbooks when no one wants to pay to see them perform. All in all, I still choose the simple life, anonymous, free, unfettered, unrestricted and plain.
Cool blogs basking in the blog park. Visit these pages:
- Rails brought me to Seaside
- Making money online
- Music files
- Politics: divine right of kings and presidents?
- Underdogs World
