On Desiring Fame

People who often dream of the luxurious lives they want to live neglect thinking of how isolating those lives can feel. We consider it better, much like everything we don't know well. We forget the vast majority of the world cannot relate to the lives we dream of living in actuality. Your success can become proof of others failure. Just because our lives may be fulfilled by the achievement of fame does not produce the same effect on the people around us and more damagingly, the ones we hold dear to our hearts. Fame won't save people but it can temporarily soothe their inner child who wants protection. The foundation of the desperation for fame is in those who so desperate to be seen they have a paralyzing fear of being forgotten. Maybe it is some of these people who think of death frequently. 

Our society brands those with international popularity as the pinnacle of prestige, worth of awe, intrigue and various media platforms that pry into their lives in the name of entertainment. Popular people dominate the majority of popular culture. This is the unspoken admission that a 'good life' is one where people know who you are. But in no way do I aim to say that fame ought not to be sought, and a simple manifestation of childhood negligence. 

Fame is crippling when aimlessly chased, obtained for the sole pleasure of ownership. But international acclaim has been a great benefit for many; it has given rise to ideas, spread awareness and spread political spaces, as well as funded youth incentives, and the opportunity to make money outside one's chosen career path, in the form of speaking, acting etc. Without mass awareness Martin Luther Kings words wouldn't have been as influential, he wouldn't have contributed to the removal of American racial segregation. But tragically it is also the exposure that led to his demise. But one can argue can argue that dying whilst fighting for what you believe in is one of the most esteemed deaths you can have.

Einstein said, "Only a life lived in service to others is worth living". So it's not that we shouldn't seek fame it's that we should do so, with an understanding of what we want to do with the world stage we've induced. We should know what we want to say, and how we want to say it, before the press says it for us.