Random quote of the day:

“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.”

—Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, and Other Aphorisms

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

The other day Peter Serafinowicz (serafinowicz) tweeted, "All this time I thought I'd been lying to myself, but I was just kidding myself."

I've been pondering it ever since, one way or another. It's become something of a mantra in recent days—or at least, the litmus paper that I slap onto each gooey life illusion of mine to see what colors come up. Results still pending, so I won't be going into all that, but I've been thinking about that remark in another context, my other obsession du jour: family history. Family history is sometimes fraught with illusion and projected realities. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, even historic puzzles. You must take many things on faith alone, and often the things you find out change everything you thought you knew.

( Read More )

The news from London of Susan Boyle's meltdown and hospitalization has made me very sad. I was afraid of something like this ever since I realized what a simple soul she was, how very protected she'd been from the hurly burly of the world. Many of us clung to her story in elation, projecting onto her underdog beating of the odds our own needs and aspirations. Then the news media picked it up and made her the center of a frenzy. Not everyone is equipped to deal with that kind of chaos, and I suspect Ms. Boyle was much more fragile than anyone supposed.

The world loves to adore people, to build them up, to project onto, to elevate beyond any human being's ability to sustain. Almost inevitably, when the public scrutiny discovers their fatal flaw, many seem to take great glee in exploiting that, picking and picking until the person at the center of it reacts—often badly, but always in a human way. But we don't want human idols. We want them to be gods living amongst us, personifications of the myths we project upon them.

And so we tear them down again. We, us, not just the news media. The news media is just the public voice of the mob zeitgeist. They would not exist in the form they currently do if we did not watch their programs, read their web sites, buy their papers and magazines. Us. We. Me.

I hope that Ms. Boyle can find her way clear of this, that she can at least realize a part of her dream. I fear that we won't let her, but I am praying that we do.