This is an interesting post. Most people would be able to relate to it but as a self-actualizing person (which means the person should get enough love and attention not to care for more) I care for the opposite. I lived in LA for three years and learned my lesson there well. Being famous is actually a very bad thing. People don’t realize everything that comes with the package. Privacy, for instance, is no longer available.
The problems of fame are hard to imagine unless you are exposed to them even slightly. Take Gavin Newsom, who is as close to a celebrity as Northern California can have. The pressure has turned him into a monster. Drugs, alcohol, corruption and hate are the instant byproducts. Public office may have been attractive at once, but only a few months ago the word from the City Hall was how much he hated being in politics. He found out the label does not represent the package.
I read a good book not too long ago and the idea was to be “slightly famous” to be recognized in one’s field. I pursued that expecting to have control and become only “slightly famous” in hospitality, fine dining, food and wine area. I knew from experience the soft skills area can get screwed up very easily. So far I have done okay. I am getting used to going to established stores and food/wine places and being sure I am being recognized but not knowing how? How do total strangers recognize me on the spot and get nervous? I think I suffer from “Michael Bauer Syndrome.” Throwing curve balls at sitting duck businesses has gotten into people. They fear whomever may write something bad about them. I got used to it and so much for being “slightly famous.” They are literally training minimum wage staff to be on the watch. I like to think I have helped more people than the opposite in my lifetime but an image contains no truth. I did consult my publicity help, who are in Southern California, and was told San Francisco is a second-rate town and I am experiencing the effects. SF pretends to be world class but is not. SF is not LA or NY. People here are local domestics socialized to be San Franciscans. They just pretend to be big city. What the heck does all this mean? Fame is a bunch of crap. Most people would never realize how easy it is to be famous and what a waste it is. I used to live in Palo Alto years ago before I moved to LA. Somebody told me not to move to LA because “I was somebody” up here. I went to LA and was treated like a giant something for three years I was there. Somebody makes money off the other person being famous. Northern California does not have a system for profiting from fame as LA does.
Now read the article and learn something.
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from The Essential Read by Robert Fuller, Ph.D.
I’m gonna live forever.
I’m gonna learn how to fly – high!
I feel it comin’ together.
People will see me and die. Fame!
I’m gonna make it to Heaven.
Light up the sky like a flame; fame!
I’m gonna live forever.
Baby, remember my name.
– From the musical Fame
I hope to persuade you that the seemingly frivolous title question holds a secret with the power to reshape human relations. That a wish for fame belies the existence of a crippling, undiagnosed malady, one rather like malnutrition, except that it’s a disease of the self, not the body. Let me explain.
Read the Post
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/somebodies-and-nobodies/200909/why-do-we-want-be-famous
Read by Cush 