Johnson.

Was just thinking about what else I could write about today. I was doing an assignment last night til 3:30 am in the morning, so I didn’t do my daily 400-500 words. I had a realisation that just felt right during university. If you’ve been reading my posts/articles for the last few days, you would have noticed that they lack some direction and focus. I was more writing for the sake of writing and grabbing some nice readers and SEO in the process. I got my first EzineArticles comment today from a REAL person.

At any rate, I decided to talk about a video that I watched on TED.com a while back. TED showcases some amazing speakers and performances from around the world, enlightening and delighting people of all ages, generations and backgrounds. I was watching a video about an Indian artist called Raghava KK. His video, which I’m still trying to embed at this point in time talks about his “5 lives” that he lived through.

Have a watch of the video. It is quite interesting and his cartoons are provocative, in-your-face and entertaining. There will be a part in the video that you might or might not pick up on. It’s the bit where he talks about his decline from fame after his cartoons started turning ugly. In any other “normal” person, this would have been a big deal. He swept it off as if it was nothing and continued on talking about his next “life”.

Stop and have a think about it. Someone reaches the dizzying heights of fame, mixing with the celebrities and stars and suddenly it’s all gone. I don’t know about you, but I would feel pretty bummed; people who you thought were you friends turned out to just be using you since you were the “it” man at the time. Old friends who might know you might have dumped you if they got too jealous or if you simply lost touch with them.

It was interesting to see that his wife actually stayed with him. It says a lot about our society that is so focused on fame, recognition and glory, simply for the purposes of satisfying one’s ego. The fact that experiencing fame and losing it breaks a lot of healthy relationships you have with people is sad. The fact that it’s considered the norm is even sadder. But I guess that’s how our society is structured.

In an ideal world, it would be awesome if people were constants. You were their friend or lover because you like or love them for their Essence and not who they are as a bundle of expectations tied together. Because really, it isn’t that big a deal if you’re not popular. The real damage comes from yourself when you’re telling yourself that because you have no friends, there must be something wrong with you.

The ego is a dangerous thing and it’s pretty easy to get sucked into what people expect of you. The hardest part is breaking free from those expectations and leading a different life. It’s not as simple as giving it all up one day. You can’t help but feel as if you would be disappointing too many people.