Apparently as much as I feel I am done with this topic, thoughts keep on pervading my mind that bring me back to it... Particularly, thoughts I had yesterday regarding this topic of celebrity-dom vs. the reality of my own existence are this...
While watching Arrow last night, the camera did a close up of Stephen Amell's face and rightly so, as is seen from non-close-up shots as well, he has a beauty mark on his lower right side of his face, just below the lip..."he's human", I thought to myself and it was based on this inference that brought me into realizing we are more like celebrities than perhaps the media would lead us to believe. Even, Willa Holland has a beauty mark on her back, in some screen shots it's more visible than others. Here I am thinking to myself, "hey, I have a beauty mark on my back too, that's kinda cool" (I am sure I am not the only one). Again, this brought me back into thinking, we are all the same... souls dwelling in human form.
I recently got together with a friend of mine, in reference to my own experience right now as a two legged, she shared with me:
1.) Celebrity's lives are all idealized ideals; very much portrayed in a pseudo-real way... by virtue of magazines, paparazzi, and other Entertainment affiliates which all focus on making us believe certain things about certain actresses/actors. A falsified version of their life. I am fully aware of this fact! (Do I wanna believe it however and pull myself out of this inadequacy I feel in my own life? - That is the true question. The Answer is a resounding yes, yet I feel something within me is holding me back... delaying the process.. let's figure out what it is!) Sometimes I catch myself thinking.. would so-and-so do this or that... like today for example, right now I am wearing one of those blemish facial masks... would Rachel Weisz do this?- The Answer, maybe, probably, yes, or a no. I'll never know, but keys to healthy, glowing skin is a regime that includes facial cleaning. ahahaha.
The second thing my friend shared with me that stuck out in my mind was this:
2.) Would you really wanna not be able to walk down the street because you have swarms of people asking for your autograph? Or you need to have bodyguards? - Personally, I wouldn't wanna lead a life, where I would need a body guard to, as Eminem put it in one of his songs, go to the washroom or anything else remotely related to the daily living activities of a human... taking a shower and not having privacy... that's crossing the line & not a fair way to live at all.
And to be completely honest, I don't really understand why it is that so many people get caught up in a movie being filmed or a certain celebrity being in town. They're just people who are on TV, what is the big deal? Is this me being a hypocrite, as I seem to be lost myself in recognizing illusion from reality? What I mean to say is this, I get that it's out of the ordinary, exciting, and like-OMG-today-I-can-meet-a-celebrity-kind-of-day, but it's also where I realize that they are again, like everyone else. They just so happened to choose a profession that puts them in the spotlight and makes them very much a target to the public eye. I think about my reaction sometimes when I see films or shows being shot here in Toronto and I just generally walk right on by, without notice because I understand that there is a job that is being done and I kind of really don't care. The other thing I realized is this it's so much easier for celebrities to separate their working lives with their personal lives (most of the time anyway) because they are on set and then they go home, or go sleep in their trailer/hotel room or do whatever else they do on their spare time - the lines seem to be very easily defined (for them, according to me). Whereas, as part of a viewing audience, I can totally see how sometimes the lines get blurred between someone elses' reality and your own... That's kind of where I am right now, in the middle.
I read an article today on intuition, and how everyone has the capability to tune in to themselves.. this seems rather obvious yet I don't do this as often as I would like to in a meditative practice sort of way (I do, if you count writing and other such things, like walks, reading, listening to music, making crafts etc. that can be meditative in and of themselves)... something to change within the coming weeks, here's hoping. Anyways the article says to listen to what your heart tells you as it shares what is best for you... My mindset these days is not necessarily as healthy as I would like it to be... what would a person who loved themselves do? They certainly wouldn't give it a second thought to focus on anyone elses' life but their own, so why am I? Do I not love myself enough to focus on my own life and living it?
I was also caught thinking of a few places that while in PEI made me happy... I often revisit them, through vision travel, when I need that extra soul nourishment! It makes me smile just thinking of them.
My favourite character on Arrow is Felicity Smoak... she is super cute and has this intelligent sexiness going on. Plus her and Oliver belong together. I had a thought... she is from Vancouver, Canada, Hooray! She's Canadian! Cause for celebration! Since she is from there and Arrow is actually filmed in Vancouver I was thinking of another element that bridges the invisible gap between celebrity and "regular" person and that is family. It's January right now and the Holidays have just more or less ended and she was probably with her family and that humanizes her... When we think of celebrity, what I feel the media wants to get out of us, is for us to believe that they are non-human... that could not be further from the truth because they still grocery shop, clothing shop, spend quality time with those they care for... possibly even playing scrabble. But we are not supposed to think of celebrities like this. Instead we are to consider them quintessential flawless, walking perfection. This again, is so fucked up and ridiculously unrealistic!!!
Emily's (the actress that plays Felicity) imdb page is not ridden with information about her personal life, which is totally within her rights. I can understand the need to be private about one's personal life when their lives feel so exposed. The only aspect of them that is supposedly in the spotlight is their working career. Yet, our world has made a business out of commodifying their very existence and every move they make, ie when they go out without make-up it's such a huge thing, when really it's not that big of a deal, it's human! This is something I am grateful for to not be happening with my life.
And on that note... my reality is composed of what I would like to believe are the simple pleasures...
Physically, I am attractive... I don't wear a lot of make-up, if any... The medicine of a tree teaches to be content with our natural beauty... in Hollywood, I don't know how I would blend in or stand out because of this... I don't think I would do too well to conform to their ideals and standard of what it means to be beautiful in the Industry, yet one often thinks differently prior to being immersed into a culture that has presumably high expectations of them and then once immersed, struggles to survive within that culture and cannot help but recalibrate their own selves and their beliefs and conform.
This is something I am sure I have already done an impeccable job at, as I have conformed to, like the Industry has wanted me to, placing the people in movies/shows on a pedestal and looking up at them as though their lives are the lives to beat, to live, to emulate, to make standard: a sheer impossibility! I watched a Matty B video today on "True Colors". Matty B is a young rapper that has quickly become very well known, on his original covers of popular songs such as the one mentioned above. And it made me come to recognize that there are so many people in this world... someone with down syndrome for example... would they be considered beautiful in Hollywood? Probably not, the reason being, Hollywood has superficialized beauty and glorified a life that is unattainable in the real world. Hollywood is stupid... or smart depending on the way one looks at it! It's also very much one's perception of these things.
My life is also made up of a family that is irreplaceable. I would not be who I am without them, without the experiences I have had throughout my life, the interactions I've had with those in my life, who have come and gone and those that are still present; my education, something I often regret, yet something I am grateful for in the long run, because it has taught me to look at things, if not everything, with a critical eye; my spiritual beliefs have lead me down a path that erases itself with each new forward step I take. In other words, no matter how small (or large) of a step I have taken in learning something new about the Universe, the World, other BEings, the energy and vibration of a Higher Consciousness, I would not be able to return to the place I was in my BEingness prior to having taken that step (however minor or major it might be). Whenever I experience something new, or old (repeatedly) I continue to learn and grow in my Soul's evolution, which is important. I am facing the exact things I am facing now because I need to. I need to surrender to this, accept it, embrace it, welcome it, trust it!
This could turn into a rather lengthy list of what I feel comprise my BEing, but recalling a quote I read on a friend's facebook wall "... I am the vast emptiness, I am the sky"... I don't even own my own name! What an intense thing to ponder...
I feel heavy in not being able to live my life without knowing what is going on in so-and-so's life (when it doesn't even matter, in the grand scheme of things, to my own existence)... stupid right? I need to let that go!
After-all I don't find any one of the characters from Arrow, particularly (physically) attractive (except for a few of the females- haahaha) and so they rightly have and are living their lives and I, mine. Not the characters, the actual people who personify them by playing said character. It makes no sense to covet something that I do not even desire in the first place that which also feeds into the conspiracy that is Hollywood and that is... I am judging these actresses/actors based solely on their appearance (the superficialization of beauty)... I don't know anything about them at all, personality or otherwise, only what I read on the Internet and that is very well inaccurate. So, coming to conclude this extremely long blog post. It seems to me, to be a fools game, where I cannot win, only in allowing myself distance and disengagement from the enterprise that is Hollywood and to not buy into any of their garbage.
Also, I Love myself to know that I wish to be free... I do not need to submit to any of these ideals whatsoever. I need to just BE.
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