The limits of art | Celebration of fantasy | Dreams | Reality is mad as a hatter | The system/2
Celebration of the human voice/2 | The nobodies | Theology/1 | Fear | The dignity of art
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How many times have you sat down in front of the TV, or picked up a magazine, or listened to a radio ad, and felt like you were a nobody compared to the things you saw, read, and heard? Today's media portrays everyone as being in perfect shape, perfect bodies, perfect everything. This affects the way we feel about ourselves. We encounter these things every day and our lives are formed around the idea that we are nobodies.
Not only does the media portray people; it also portrays things that will make us feel so much better than we are. Not everyone is upset with their lives and need things to make them happy. There are plenty of happy people in the world. Commercials for things like alcohol, cars, jewelry, etc all try to make us believe that if we have these things we will be better than we already are. We will be able to do things we normally cannot do, feel better than we have ever felt.
In all reality, the only thing that can make ourselves better than we already are is ourselves. You have to just accept who you are and love yourself for who you are. Starving yourself so that you look like someone you saw on TV is not going to make you any better of a person or make you feel better about yourself. Material things might make you feel better for a short amount of time but not forever, you have to believe in yourself that you are not just a nobody, you are somebody to at least one person in the world.

A quote that I really like is from a TV Public Service Announcement by Mary J. Blige.

"You can have twenty million people around you all the time, when you don't love yourself for yourself you're lonely.

Drugs used to make me feel no pain at all. It's a false thing. Once the feeling is gone, you're back to feeling like you're nobody.

Love starts from inside you. I just accepted who I was. Accepted my big feet. Accepted my big lips. I accepted Mary.

That fills the loneliness when you love you, when you really love you. It's a way of healing."

I really think that the first and last lines of that quote are exactly right. If you do not love yourself for who you are then you will always be lonely at heart. Do not let what you see and hear affect the way you view yourself. Accept who you are, and if you do not like the person that you are then change, but only change for yourself. Do not change for anyone else.

The Nobodies

Definition Media Influences Been Screwed?? Help