I wanna leave a legacy. How will they remember me?
Thank you, Nicole Nordeman...you put into words something I've thought about a lot over the course of my life. And ultimately, the legacy we're earning in heaven is far more important that any status we could gain on Earth, but...
Last night I watched the season premier of American Idol, which focused on the great, if less than talented in the amateur singing category, city of Minneapolis. I love this place! However, the show, with all it’s incredibly horrible auditions and the very rare good ones, made me wonder what is up with our obsession with fame?!? Why do we have it? It seems to be a carnal kind of thing, in a way. I imagine some of the antics and really bad singers found on last night’s show could be found during any country’s Idol search. But it’s not just Idol-centric…it’s everywhere: people want their 15 minutes of fame, but more than that, they want to leave a legacy.
I confess that I’ve been subject to the same instincts: I certainly don’t want to live an ordinary life and I definitely would love for my name to be well known after I leave this Earth. I may not be as, ummm, desperate to get that notice right now, but it is something I want and I think part of everyone wants. Perhaps, after a certain point in life, it doesn’t matter any more. My parents, for example, are perfectly happy doing what they do, which is quietly work the farm and eek out a living doing it and spend an occasional evening out with friends. But I can’t help but to think that when they were younger, they had big dreams, too. So maybe it’s a youth-oriented aspiration, although I think there are people who hold on to it, such as a Donald Trump or a Bill Gates or any number of other people who are not only famous, but continue to do big things.
Actually, of late, I’ve felt very much that I’m at a crossroads in my life between the well, ordinary and the very ordinary. I don’t know, at this point, if I’m capable of doing something really big to gain extraordinariness. And that attention-wanting part of myself is screaming to not give in to the very ordinary, which probably looks very much like what my parents and much of middle America have. I want something just a little bit more, but don’t quite know how to get it. That’s actually not true, I kind of do, or at least have an idea. Journalism, which is my field, is the key. After a lot of time and effort, some journalists, even local ones, are afforded a certain amount of faux celebrity-ness. So there’s that. And also, just having one’s name on hundreds of articles that will be around for the ages, even if nobody knows or cares, in some library somewhere, is ridiculously gratifying. I have articles, but not hundreds of them and certainly not anything ground breaking, save, perhaps, a piece coming out in February…we’ll see what kind of reaction we get from the industry. The point is, I haven’t reached faux celebrity status yet and I want it. The question is: do I have the balls to go out and earn it?
Last night I watched the season premier of American Idol, which focused on the great, if less than talented in the amateur singing category, city of Minneapolis. I love this place! However, the show, with all it’s incredibly horrible auditions and the very rare good ones, made me wonder what is up with our obsession with fame?!? Why do we have it? It seems to be a carnal kind of thing, in a way. I imagine some of the antics and really bad singers found on last night’s show could be found during any country’s Idol search. But it’s not just Idol-centric…it’s everywhere: people want their 15 minutes of fame, but more than that, they want to leave a legacy.
I confess that I’ve been subject to the same instincts: I certainly don’t want to live an ordinary life and I definitely would love for my name to be well known after I leave this Earth. I may not be as, ummm, desperate to get that notice right now, but it is something I want and I think part of everyone wants. Perhaps, after a certain point in life, it doesn’t matter any more. My parents, for example, are perfectly happy doing what they do, which is quietly work the farm and eek out a living doing it and spend an occasional evening out with friends. But I can’t help but to think that when they were younger, they had big dreams, too. So maybe it’s a youth-oriented aspiration, although I think there are people who hold on to it, such as a Donald Trump or a Bill Gates or any number of other people who are not only famous, but continue to do big things.
Actually, of late, I’ve felt very much that I’m at a crossroads in my life between the well, ordinary and the very ordinary. I don’t know, at this point, if I’m capable of doing something really big to gain extraordinariness. And that attention-wanting part of myself is screaming to not give in to the very ordinary, which probably looks very much like what my parents and much of middle America have. I want something just a little bit more, but don’t quite know how to get it. That’s actually not true, I kind of do, or at least have an idea. Journalism, which is my field, is the key. After a lot of time and effort, some journalists, even local ones, are afforded a certain amount of faux celebrity-ness. So there’s that. And also, just having one’s name on hundreds of articles that will be around for the ages, even if nobody knows or cares, in some library somewhere, is ridiculously gratifying. I have articles, but not hundreds of them and certainly not anything ground breaking, save, perhaps, a piece coming out in February…we’ll see what kind of reaction we get from the industry. The point is, I haven’t reached faux celebrity status yet and I want it. The question is: do I have the balls to go out and earn it?
Labels: fame
posted by basily22 @ 5:04 PM
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