August 20, 2012

• Hero Worship and Identity

  threeinbeijing:

  I have concluded that blogs dedicated to following one person, an actress, singer, athlete, whatever they be… are very, very unhealthy. It is one thing to appreciate the talent of an individual, and to respect what they represent. But they are still people. They have flaws. They get flustered and…

  This is fascinating to me because I don’t think it’s about the person, at all. Rather, it’s about the image of the person. The two are, shall we say, overlapping (in a Venn diagram sense) but not the same.

  If someone dedicated a shrine to me (nobody’s been crazy enough to yet) it would be to the spirit of moritheil, not to moritheil. No matter how much it was nominally in my name, it would really be to their own private appreciation of what they think of me. And I am comfortable enough wearing that image, like a second skin, or a business suit, or a giant mecha, but I can live with that distinction. I was, after all, a fiction writer. But perhaps not everyone knows who they are – in which case I suppose it must be rather baffling to be suddenly confronted with an image you that is slightly different from the real you. In that case, I suppose, people will refuse accolades, reject gifts, discard titles, all to retain some sense of who they really are.

  Sometimes people like you for you. Sometimes they just like your sweet ride.

  • 9:07 am
  • 3 Comments