„Life is a constant attempt to climb towards something
which once we reach…
makes us realize
how much it was a mirage.“

VV

My dear Reader, 

the picture above shows the frontman of a band, carried on the hands of his fans who have been more than happy to be able to touch their idol and be near him.¹

The quote comes from a friend of mine, a very talented artist and someone that i might have a tiny obsession with – at least according to the people around me. 

Do you have any one like this in your life? Have you got idols you look up to? Or someone you are obsessing about? 

IDOLS AND OBSESSIONS 

Idol: a person or thing that is loved and admired very much²

Obsession: the state in which a person’s mind is completely filled with thoughts of one particular thing or person in a way that is not reasonable or normal.²

Idolizing is nothing new, in fact in the 2nd millennium BC there have been two broad forms of cult image already, by the ancient Egypts and the Indo- European cultures. Mainly though to worship a deity. When we grow up we often idolize those near to us, parents, grandparents, siblings. 

Most of us then discover the great world of pop (or other) culture and we find characters or persons that inspire us and that become some kind of  a role model.

Among one of my first characters that I loved and hope to one day be a bit like her was Anne Shirley, main character of Lucy Maud Montgomerys book Anne of Green Gables. 

Anne was different to most of the girls i read about and one of the things i recall the is that she wanted to be a writer. 

I remember telling a childhood friend that i would be a writer one day, like Anne, and that one day i might marry somehow like Gilbert Blythe. 

Well, i did not exactly move to Prince Edward Island, where the novel is set, but i am writing and i have a husband with brown hair and brown eyes like Gilbert.

When i was in my teens one of the most famous boy bands back then separated with one of their singers. I am of course talking about Robbie Williams leaving Take That – and yes, i am THAT old. 

The hysteria was huge, there was a girl in our group of friends who was so upset that she did not go to school for days and refused to eat properly. 

Looking at her behavior trough the eyes of a grown up now it is obvious that she was mentally unstable and used Take That as an escape from an every day life that was just too hard for her to live. 

I was going to a similar phase when i was a bit older, some things happened in such a short period of time that i was not able to handle them properly and i found freedom in a phantasy world, involving some musicians and the early days of internet. (A story i might tell you another day.) 

When i did a bit of research for this post and tried to find some articles about the positive sides of Idolism i stumbled upon a lot of articles describing the exact phenomena of idolizing a celebrity as a mental health issue. 

I thought alright, maybe idolizing is a bit strong, what if we talk about being a fan? Being a fan of someone is not a bad thing, is it? 

Fan comes from Fanaticism and is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal or an obsessive enthusiams.

Already we are back to the bad connotations. 

But as after all this is my blog and my thoughts i will now tell you my opinion:

It is absolutely okay to be a fan or even to idolize someone. If it gives you good feelings. If it makes you happy.

But if it is the only thing that makes you happy and gives you pleasure… maybe it is time to think about if you are on the verge of becoming dangerously obsessed. 

The danger in idolizing someone is that you never know 100% of it all. Especially in the world we live in today, where you can photoshop easily and where social media lets you see only the glamorous side of everyone.

No one is perfect, everyone has his flaws. Remember the artist i told you i might be a bit obsessed with? I could easily list you 5 things that are not perfect about him. And another 5 things that i admire and that i take as an example for me. Maybe i is a healthy obsession.

But there is another aspect of this all i would like to write about. Last year i made an Instagram post on my personal account, going like this:

Of course i am no stranger to this phenomenon, being on the giving and the receiving side.

There are two people in my life good friends, but i had real troubles understanding why they would be friends, as they have been different in my eyes. It took a while until i understood, that they are similar after all and i had a modified idea in my mind.

There is girl in my life who somehow looked up to me, telling me how great i am and yes, it seems, she somehow put me up on a pedestal. When i did not meet her expectations anymore it took her not long to dismantle the column she had build below me, causing me to fall down very far and hard. 

But isn’t it unfair that when we discover that someone isn’t the person we believed him or to be it is mostly them we blame? Is it justified ? Did this person really lie to us and deceiving us? Are we really angry on that person or are we in reality angry with ourselves, for deceiving ourselves? 

Alright – that is me for today – i hope you enjoyed reading. If you liked this post, you are as always welcome to comment and share. 

Thank you and hope to read you soon again

A.