Getting back to this Fame idea...

On my long walk home today I started pondering this whole notion of fame once again and why fame/celebrity status tends to manipulate people, turn them shallow and self-absorbed, and quite often, become terrible people in general.

Of course it's ego driven. You could say it's that simple. Yes, you're probably saying 'Duh Holden, this is obvious.' But what about fame though, drives the ego to become that much more swollen? More than from, say, just plain old payoff from hard work? I think our brain (as well as our basic human nature) expects life to be hard, trying, and all around requiring a lot of work. When something comes from nothing, our ego goes "huh?" But, as with anything else, once we get exposed to it enough (see our names up in lights, so to speak), after a while we also start to see this as not only normal, but also deserved. Then the ego accepts and embraces. Then we believe all the BS about ourselves.

So, in conclusion, the only real people who deserve to become famous are people like Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, etc, because they were already assholes to begin with. There's a lot of celebrities in hollywood who I am sure could be capable of some pretty unpseakable atrocities too if they weren't already so distracted and sedated by their luxurious lifestyle. Who knows...