Looking In the Wrong Places
Singers, actors, directors, models, and athletes. We love their art; we love their performances. They can add colour, joy, and excitement to our lives with what they do. I am sure there is a special movie, song, or even a match that each of us likes to watch or listen to repeatedly.
The trouble begins when we start confusing excellence at a particular skill with personal greatness. We study every small gesture, phrase, tweet, and comment of our favourite celebrities and give it a positive spin. In our minds, we ascribe to these people qualities that we wish they had. And then we scour the media for evidence of those qualities and are thrilled when there is even a tiny hint of their existence.
We are not entirely to blame. Everyone wants heroes. Heroes give us hope. They make the world feel like a safe place, a happy place. Yet, the fact remains, if we are looking for our heroes among celebrities, we may be looking in the wrong place.
Author Mark Manson, who was the co-author of Will Smith’s autobiography, wrote this in his newsletter following the infamous incident of Will Smith’s slap:
“I guess I’ve never understood celebrity idolization. Hell, I expect these people to f*** up and disappoint us. After all, they’re under 100x more scrutiny and pressure than any of us will ever be and many of them come from difficult backgrounds and struggle with mental health issues.”
He goes on to describe an interview in which rapper Lil’ Wayne was repeatedly questioned about his drug-related arrest in an attempt to make him confess to some feelings of guilt.
Manson says:
“Wayne responded with something like, ‘Man, if you need a rapper to tell you how to live, then maybe you ain’t really livin’ at all’.”
Equally pernicious is our habit of engaging in celebrity gossip. One might argue that the reason why some celebrities behave in an increasingly erratic manner is to get attention. They want us to talk about them. So, what is wrong if we choose to oblige?
Firstly, it is not what celebrities want us to do, it is what we want to do that should guide our lives. While we spend our time poring over the thrills or embarrassments in the lives of various celebrities, hours of our own life pass by: unexamined, uninhabited. Secondly, though someone’s imploding life may give us reason to chuckle, especially when they had been particularly arrogant in their success, laughing at people’s failures does something to us. Bit by bit, it makes us lose our empathy. The world gets divided into ‘me and mine’ (whose misery is worthy of sadness) and ‘all the rest’ (whose misery deserves ridicule and laughter). And lastly, if the only time we bond with our friends is when we gossip, then that does not speak highly of the depth of our relationship with our friends.
Author and YouTuber Joshua Becker says:
“It just seems that with all the things that we could choose to talk about on any given day, the intimate details of another person’s life should be lower on the list than it usually is.”
So, the next time we want to invest time in celebrities, we should watch their best performances. Better still, we can share that experience with our friends and loved ones. And when the time comes to look for heroes, maybe a heart-to-heart talk with the people we love can remind us how they are heroic in their own way.
