Our Personal Walk of Shame
Many people fight for longevity in this world of fallen idols. Their little piece of recognition in a ‘look-at-me’ reality. Through the fishbowl of existence we all strive to stand out from the crowd. To have our presence affirmed. To be acknowledged as special or anointed. To take our place on history’s page. If not us, then through our ancestors, on a vague quest of yore where the mists of time curls its fingers around the hourglass of antiquity. In a fervent search for legitimacy we strive for that footnote that establishes our lineage above all others. This is our utmost present desire. To be considered by people unknown, to be more valuable than other people we do not know. To ascend to the lofty heights of adulation when our feet do not even leave the ground.
We are self-absorbed. Fuelled by illegitimate notions of grandeur and engulfed by delusional aspirations of Fame. For Fame is so fleeting. It is a fickle mistress who moves on to the next 15 minute dalliance with relentless conspiracy. No one is safe from its watchful eye. No one deserves its enduring love.
For it is incapable of monogamy. It revels in infamy. It resides in the house of controversy. It divides. It conquers. It lays waste to the field of honour and brings down the pillars of honesty. It skips without regard to the beat of a drum meted out by the anarchist thud of greed. It moves alongside its first cousin hand in hand through the stage we have set and brings the curtain down on what could have been.
When we are young we shout and as we get older our voice makes compromises to satisfy our need for comfort. But sometimes we should endure that little bit of discomfort and confront that which is hidden from us. Peek behind the wizard’s curtain which covers what we must see. Therefore allowing us to hear and be better in ourselves not of ourselves. To begin a personal journey to become this thing that we are not. For ignoring what is behind that curtain is to miss the plight of peoples less fortunate than ourselves. First world problems take priority over what humanitarian challenges consume so many of our friends. And the legacy of one’s own history is undermining the very future we wish to seize.
History is not written by the vanquished. For it is to the conqueror that the spoils of war are given. When the defeated are all gone, their stories die with them and the authors of their demise have free reign to reinvent. This is the world we live in. The history we create is the history we believe. In the absence of coherent testimony, the world will not react. Already people ignore victims from the debit side of the ledger. In cities we do not see, in conflicts we do not hear; ordinary people die in their thousands. We do not ask to bear witness. To legitimise. To care.
The insincerity of our own reality steels us against the truth of the world around us. We care for 90 seconds and move on. Botox-ridden eyebrows cannot even fake a reaction as they are fixed in a constant embrace with an everlasting visage. Unmoved. Stoic. Frozen in a moment of mock endeavour. And always it comes back to the fascination with fame. Ours. Theirs. No matter whose. For there only exists the desire to engage with a soulless camera and record a plastic edifice for all of posterity.
Maybe it is time to put the cameras down and reflect upon what we are filling our lives with. Actually live in the moment rather than wander through it with a pout meant only for a lens. Listen to the music. Watch the performance. Experience. Engage. Live. Be with your friends. Share that moment in reality. Make the effort. Do not be a sponge for the inconsequential moments in history. Contribute to it by conquering the banality that has no guiding hand except for the underwhelming compass of failure.
We should not be shameful but as we walk through the horizon of our fears that is exactly what we are. As children are abandoned. Where lives do not matter. Where the dawn heralding the introduction of a superseded gadget is more important than the new day itself. When the lives of those crushed under the rubble are as insignificant as the wrapping around your fast food item. When ‘you’ becomes more important than ‘us’. As we walk through this minefield of misery should we let our leaders decide who should live or who should die?
I thought we were better than this. That our eating of the future would be satisfied by the need to overcome the challenges of the now. Perhaps we are just fooling ourselves and humanity has become more engaged with its own navel than it is with the world around it. And while we are distracted by the shiny lights of the irreverent, narcissistic view of an increasingly degenerate world, legitimate power will be wielded by fewer and fewer people until we are banished to walk forever on our own personal walk of shame.
