I am sure that fame is not arrived at through pursuing one's dreams, as everyone claims. If this were true, there would be more famous people than homeless people.
I was watching a show on MTV tonight called The Buried Life, where four guys (Canadians, I might add) set out in an RV to cross off items on their list of "stuff we've always wanted to do but probably won't ever get the chance to". The items vary from asking out the girl of their dreams (in this case Taylor Swift) to getting married in Vegas to making a million dollars in one day. They get away with this crap by also promising to fulfill other people's more practical and socially beneficial dreams when they complete one of theirs. It's a fun show that I find worth 30 minutes of my time.
It got me thinking: What does it take to become a talking point amongst regular people? Watching these guys clown around on screen, and thinking of other reality TV stars and celebrities of their ilk, I realize that they have something a bit different from the average. They click together, fill the necessary niches that any successful guy group has, and probably have a keen sense of film-making and editing. So they had this idea. And they did it. And somehow they are now famous.
But they're like 23! (I'm not really sure how old they are, but they look about my age.) It CAN'T be that all four of them have dreamed of this idea for years, and they knew that it would be a kick-ass, popular sensation. I doubt they had a business plan. What they had was a perfect blend of characters, one that unintentionally combined for success, and this simple chemistry propped the whole crew up through the dreaded beginning stage.
Imagine these guys sitting around a college campus or dormitory, coming up with this idea. How many other college students have come up with a comparable novelty? Why aren't they famous? They may half-heartedly pursue it for a short time, but more often than not motivation wanes and the idea fizzles out. Maybe the idea wasn't great in the first place, but these concepts must evolve as they are undertaken fully, and that's where the genius lies. I highly doubt that the guys on The Buried Life had this all sorted out before they set out to film their show. Maybe they dreamed that it would become a national sensation, but it's hard to imagine that they actually believed themselves. It's easy to imagine that they were just in it to have a blast.
We all want to be famous, or at least for someone to recognize us on the street. We've all got that dream of seeing ourselves on TV or in a magazine or authoring a book. And we're told our entire lives that "we can become whatever we'd like if we work hard at it" and to "not let anyone tell us what we can and can't do". But no matter how hard we work, more likely than not, we will never become reality television stars or celebrities, which is what many people would like to "become".
My point is this: Consider all of the ideas similar to The Buried Life that went forward, did not become famous, but satisfied it's participants nonetheless. For example: This blog. I write it because I believe it goes towards improving my long-term writing abilities, but also because it's kind of fun. In all likelihood, it will not become famous or noteworthy, because it isn't new or different. It's an idea that I undertook for the purpose of being able to express myself, and because it's something I somewhat like to do. There are no repercussions if nobody ever reads it or gets inspired from it, so it's a win-win. I think that creative undertakings where fame and fortune is a vague subplot and in which failure doesn't exist, are how stars are accidentally born.
Today, everyone's so focused on becoming the next big thing, a stressful endeavor in and of itself. Look at some ideas that took off, like Facebook and Reality TV. These didn't occur through careful planning and quick, efficient work to get ahead. It seems to be that they came about mostly through luck and trial and error. We can't try and try and try again to innovate. It has to come through an individual or group passion that evolves into something entertaining to others. So stop worrying about getting ahead of the curve, and let the world spin as it may. In my opinion, acting this way will get you there faster anyways.
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