Learning to float...

For me, it's my desire to see my name on a book, to see my photos in a magazine, to see my art on someone's wall, to have more blog followers- the desire to be famous, to be known, to be special. Two things recently got me thinking about this push that so many of us face in our own unique ways. Only they were examples of the opposite- the desire to be anonymous.

A friend of mine whom I work with and I are both lovers of the Britney. So, yesterday at work to pass the time, we did a google image search. The results were disheartening. Although half the photos were legitimate press shots, the other half were from the paparazzi- many pictures of her crying in various public places. This disgusted the both of us.

Then this afternoon as I was running errands and listening to the amazing and beautifully written story, The Lovely Bones, I encountered it from a different angle. The story takes a close look at a family in the years following the murder of one of its members. The sister of the victim, while attending a camp away from home, does not reveal her last name for fear of the other kids recognizing her as "the dead girl's sister". She wants to feel normal. Britney wants to feel normal. The desire for anonymity.

So, thinking on these two things, I started to wonder why we are pressed to be singled out as special. The weird thing is that as soon as I got home and opened my email, I found one from Oprah.com that featured an article on that exact topic. So I read it.

The article was actually inspired by the acts of the "balloon family" and the party crashers that have been overwhelming the news lately. The author, Mike Robbins, attempts in his writing to dissect this facet of human nature. He points out, not just the obvious, but the more subtle ways that this urge presents itself, i.e. wanting recognition at work, desiring more "friends" on facebook, etc. And, it made me ask myself the question, why is the pleasure of taking the photograph not enough? Why is the act of writing not enough? Why the need to be published?

According to Robbins, it is our deep-seated fear that we are somehow inadequate and inherently flawed. Perhaps. For me, I think part of it may also be that I feel the need for some sort of physical goal in life. If I have that concrete picture of a book in my mind, I have the carrot to chase, thereby giving myself, and my life, meaning and purpose. I think my biggest fear of all is the idea that we are just "floating accidental-like on a breeze". Why that bothers me so I have no idea. Worse, I have no idea how to let go of it.