Why are we so obsessed and care so much about what celebrities do or don't do?
I think it is because we need a star, a hero or a heroine, someone to look to.

That is natural to human nature, to have a role model, or someone to emulate. But there also lies the danger. We often emulate everything, whether good or bad, and we follow what our hero or heroine does, sometimes blindly.

We give up our own mind, and either forget, or take the easy way out. But then we are disappointed when our star does something so blatant that we cannot overlook it. This is especially true if we choose to emulate a living celebrity.

After all, they are just as human as we are, just as prone to make mistakes as we are. Sometimes even more so. Imagine someone who hit stardom as a child. Very few of them are able to live normal lives, since all that fame and money sometimes makes them think that they are permitted to do anything that the law of gravity no longer applies to them, as a wise old man I knew once said.

Let's use a basketball star as an example. They usually start playing during childhood, then get a sports scholarship and go on to be professional. Some of them have to give so much to the game just to keep up their standard, that that is about all they can do. Yet many of our young people follow them blindly. If they advertise something, that is what they want. What makes them know better than we ourselves? Nothing on God's green earth, but their celebrity status has given them a sort of aura. They can do no wrong, and they it all.

But do they really know it all? Can somebody whose every move is followed by the newspapers really know it all? As a matter of fact, can anybody know it all? Maybe back in the Middle Ages there were a few well-learned people who know most of what was known in those days. And even then I am willing to bet there were some things they didn't know.

But in today's day, we don't even know what we don't know, there are so many new things and specialties to know. Even in one particular field, such as science, does anybody know how many sciences there are? And even if he or she did, do they know just how much knowledge exists in each one of those sciences?

I like to read books on different careers. Even there, there is so much variety, things that are needed in some countries are not needed in others. And then again, some things can make a comeback. And some people make a career out of showing off "how things used to be".

But all of this is simply to say that while we may need a star to look up to, we should temper our "star-struckness" with a bit of realism, so as not to go overboard and keep our feet on the ground.

Learn more about this author, Diane Hodge.
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