Famous

I’ve never really wanted to be famous. (Well except maybe for that brief period of time when I wanted to be a pro wrestling manager for the WWF.) Even though I love being on stage and involved with theatre, I never had any plans to “make it big.” In fact, fame really bothers me. I don’t understand why regular people get obsessed with fame and support the “celebrity gossip industry.” Why can’t I watch a news broadcast without the mentions of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan? Whatever they’re up to, it’s never any good. There are millions of people making destructive choices like theirs every day, so why do we need to somehow glorify them? It’s ghoulish and represents the worst of our society.

This is not to say that I don’t want to be known. I enjoy living in a smallish town and knowing quite a bit of people just due to the fact that I’m a teacher. I probably like this because I’ve always admired the fact that my dad seems to know people everywhere he goes, and they’re always glad to see him. When I get a little smile or handshake in the grocery store, I guess it makes me feel a little bit more like him.

I heard a great poem this week, and its final lines capture my concept of fame:

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

The poem is “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Does it surprise you, then, that one of my favorite movies is It’s a Wonderful Life? It’s so redeeming for me when the everyman George Bailey wins in the end, with all of the people he’s ever helped rallying to his rescue in his time of need. I guess that’s the kind of fame I’m hoping for. I hope that my life is making other people’s lives a little bit better, and that in the end I’m “famous” for that.

YourTurn:  What kind of “fame” are you working for in your life?  How do you hope others think of you now?  How do you want to be remembered?

(Disclaimer:  Sorry about the silly music at the end of the YouTube clip. It’s the only one I could find that started where I wanted it to start.)