Sometimes I get the uncomfortable sensation that our celebrities and politicians are actually mentors on a societal (and perhaps worldwide) level.
As in, if they are not up on a pedestal, they are down in a fiery pit....and still, despite all their mentoring, we have yet to grasp why this model simply doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work because here, they are not people - complex in all their grey-ness just like the rest of us.
Nope. Once they enter the public eye, they are assigned a role by us: fiery pit or pedestal.
These roles rob them of every speck of their own latent potential and insist they stay one-dimensional, incapable of personal growth or positive change.
The fiery pit folks are the ones we have consigned to burn for all eternity for their real or imagined transgressions. They are so awful. They are just terrible. How could they? They are our downfall. They are the worst people in the entire world. They WILL bring us all down in the end.
Conversely, the pedestal people are so good - oh so good. They are so pure, so venerated. They can do no wrong. They are our salvation. How did we get so lucky to have these angels walking amongst us? They are the best people in the entire world. But for them, all would be DOOM.
Sometimes their assigned role suddenly changes, but rarely because they choose it.
We change it for them, and they don't get to change it back until we say so. And at times, this works to their advantage - at least if they happen to like their current assignment. At all other times....well, suck it up and deal.
I am going to use a very visible and very contentious example here (guess what it is!).
Yup - Trump and Clinton.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, one got assigned the pedestal and the other got assigned the fiery pit.
But what is worse, they didn't go to their assigned stations solo. All the Clinton folks went to her assigned pedestal with her. And guess where all the Trump folks got sent?
To be honest, if I were Clinton or Trump, I am not actually sure which assignment would be worse. In my own modest way I have spent time in each place and have found each to be equally uncomfortable. Neither represented me well. Deep down inside, I knew I wasn't all bad or all good.
Although I always did know one thing - throughout each assignment, I felt consistently confused, lonely and scared.
When I was in the fiery pit, I was scared I really was that bad. Maybe those other people, the ones who sent me there, knew something about me I didn't. The longer I stayed there, the more convinced I was I deserved that assignment.
When I was on the pedestal, I was always stressed about not letting my supporters down (which I knew I would inevitably do, because no way was I that good). It was just a matter of time before they discovered the truth and sent me to the fiery pit, where I would by then clearly belong.
But I never for one moment thought that the fate of the world, free or otherwise, hung on my ability to live up, or down, to my assigned role.
I don't see that same awareness when it comes to Trump or Clinton.
(And where I especially don't see it is with Clinton's daughter, Chelsea. The moment the presidential election was over and she announced her own political aspirations, boom - she immediately got assigned to the fiery pit. The social media critics were vehement - this girl has nothing for us. She is entitled. She is crooked. She is the latest hydra head that sprouts where the last one was cut off.)
It was horrible.
It was also REALLY confusing.
Her mom was perched up on the pedestal watching her daughter get sent to the pit. Like, huh?
Trump, on the other hand, apparently spells doom for a country I happen to believe is particularly great....although, being a lifelong resident and citizen, I may be just the teensiest bit biased.
But also, every week when my Time magazine arrives, I read fresh stories about people from every corner of the globe who are continually choosing to endure unspeakable danger and personal hardship just to get here.
They clearly don't care who is in charge. They don't care if the current head honcho (or honcha) is up on a pedestal or down in a fiery pit.
They just want to get here and when they get here, they desperately want to be permitted to stay.
They still see how great it is here. They see we can go vote, disagree with each other, even assign (consign) one another to pedestals or pits, and mostly everyone stays safe and gets to keep all their rights.
They see we have the chutzpah, balls, courage, whatever, to stand up to bullies and mentor the weaker or disenfranchised amongst us until they are able to become strong as well.
They see all the opportunity here - to be in business, to create, to befriend, to learn, to love, to speak freely - and they know it is a rare find.
It is also a result of the hard work of millions of people over hundreds of years of time, not just one single person who happens to sit at the helm for a term or two.
They also know anyone who comes here and deals themselves in gets to be a part of something with nearly limitless potential. This something transcends any celebrity or elected leader. It transcends the issues and problems we still struggle with, some of which are minor and some of which are very serious indeed.
It stretches far beyond matters of pedestals or fiery pits, because the people with the REAL power aren't rotting away in either of those places. They are way too busy wrestling with matters all muddy and grey and real and far-reaching that first started when we became "us" and may continue far beyond one or two or 10 Presidents from now, depending on how much progress we make.
Please know - I DO get that people, many of whom are oh so dear to me, are afraid, angry, and for this reason utterly focused on one solitary goal: changing the regime as quickly as possible.
But oh it hurts to see it and hear it.
Here is why. There was a time when I was in the fiery pit with my family, my friends, everyone who knew me, because I had an eating disorder and chronic anxiety and depression and really low self-esteem and oh, what a liability and a drag I was to everyone and everything.
I was soooo bad. I was soooo selfish. I was SUCH a bad person. I should just get over myself already.
Now I look back and see that, through the support and belief of a series of mentors, many of whom barely even knew me at first, I have become someone my family and friends and people in general actually seem to like!
Even more amazingly, I am slowly becoming someone I actually like and respect.
I could NOT have done this on my own - that level of transformation is never just an inside job.
I needed people who saw the good in me - heck, the GREAT in me - when no way could I see it for myself.
I needed mentors who saw far beneath my uncaring exterior persona to the untapped reservoir of need and hope and strength and potential locked away inside me.
Because of their vision and ongoing support, I changed. Miraculously, nearly in spite of myself sometimes, I became someone who could give, who could use what small percentage of societal power I was given to do some actual good.
I truly believe that any leader "We the People" elect - however many of us happen to initially agree or disagree with that choice - has that same potential.
But it is not just up to them to realize and use their power for good. It is up to US.
Dedicated to my dear ones who worry in private and out loud about the fate of us and the beautiful, rare, precious country we call home. I may not have a ton of faith, despite having been on a dedicated search for more over the past year, but I do believe in “We the People.” I always have. I do now. I always will. No one single individual can make this country great or take that greatness away. That choice remains squarely in our hands.