11.

Hero Worship or Idolatry?

Who thinks about what is on tv? Who thinks about the people we watch on tv? Who wonders, who are these people?

Is anyone else not finding anything to watch on the tv even after you have spent extortionate amounts of money to get the channels?

Just as the supermarkets are choosing your Sunday lunch roast so other people are telling you who and what to watch on tv.

Take this very week for instance, we are having war thrust upon us like never before. The number of programmes dealing with war in one form or another, be it films, documentaries or another form we are being engulfed in the fervor of wars gone and wars actually taking place on the news channels.

Then when it comes to news of anything else, it is the rich and famous that are thrust into the spotlight, constantly.

I love game shows, yet every game show on tv has been hijacked by ‘stars’, old and new. All Star Mr. & Mrs, All Star Family Fortune, All Star The Cube, All Star Pointless, All Star Everything.

All of a sudden the man on the street does not get a look in, we are force fed the rich and famous performing on stage to raise money for their favorite charities, bless them!! 

Then take the book industry. It is now very rare for an unknown author to get an outing. Come Xmas and what are we force fed, the autobiographies of the stars, books written by the stars, then they are selling them all at 70% off for Father’s Day.

What has happened to the chances for the common man?

Why are we being force fed ‘stars’ at every turn? Even our food is not exempt with tv chefs bringing out ranges of food for us to enjoy!!

Well I demur, for the stars in my life are those who touch my life physically. Who I can reach out my hand to and touch, who want to touch me. I refuse to look at someone and adore them just because they are rich and famous.

There I have said it. My grandson keeps asking me if I like the Queen. I keep telling him that when I can sit down for a drink or a cup of tea with her and find out what her thoughts are then I will be able to answer him. Until that time I just do not know if the Queen and I are on the same wave length or if we have anything in common.

So who is engineering the adoration of a certain section of society for all the rest of us to look up to?

Are you one of the six million followers of Victoria Beckham?

I am not as she might not remember my name or my face with all those posts to look through every day.

Who is it who holds up to our young people the people they should attempt to be like? Who engineers our thoughts? Is this healthy?

There was a time when a young man would want to emulate his father, no longer, who would want to be like an ‘old’ man? Aha, but that old man was once young like you, that ‘old’ man is not a follower of the rich and famous, he has time to talk to you and time to take an interest in your life, he does not have six million children, does he?

So is this adoration of the rich and famous what we want for our children, the life where only those placed at the top of the money tree are worth our time and interest?

It is not what I want for my children, I want my children to look at one another and see the people who want to reach out to them and put their hands in theirs, not those who only want their money and their adoration at a distance, a six million people distance.

Idolatry to the religious is frowned upon yet it is practiced, specifically targeted to our young. The young are urged to copy people and some can even go to the extreme of plastic surgery  to look more like their idols.

This is wrong, it is as wrong as pornography on the internet and the tv. It is manipulation of the masses to not see their own worth but only the worth of someone distant who they must spend copious amounts of money to emulate.

As the Phillips screw was invented to stop us using knives as screwdrivers, so the idol has been created to nurture a system that does not have your welfare in mind.

There is only one thing that idols want from you and that is money and I am sure Victoria Beckham will send a personal message of thanks to every one of her 6 million followers in time to thank them for making her the multi rich idol she is.

No, there again, I forgot, she did it all by herself, didn’t she?