Videos. They somehow inspire me to write. Bizarre inspiration.
So I'm sitting here watching Mariah Carey (aka Mimi) and i'm wondering--can people really change? [I'm also wondering why the producers of her Shake it Off video didn't edit the many corny parts where she looks like an insecure middle school girl trying out for the pep squad knowing she will never make the cheerleading one]. No offense to all you pep squad folks out there...you had an important role in middle and high schools across America! Anyway, I just started thinking about how Mariah reinvented herself--overcame her nervous breakdown and her white trash image (not that she's white but if folks are calling folks who aren't Black niggas these days I guess you don't have to be white to be called white trash either) to make a hit record. Then I started thinking about how Puffy has actually gone from Puff Daddy to Puffy to P. Diddy to now just Diddy. I mean, in reality he's the same triflin' at home yet hard-working, hustling, money-chasing man regardless of what he calls himself. But the way celebrities--from Mariah to Puffy to Madonna to Gwen Stefani to Mase--reinvent themselves, I'm wondering if people really can change? Or is it really just their image that changes?
It may take me a few days to finish thinking through this one.
Over the past few years I have been subjected to many claims of changed folks--you know, boyfriends who promise to do different, employers who promise to manage different, heck even myself who promises to get more organized, manage my finances more wisely, eat better, drink less, etc...As a Christian I have to believe in the power of people to change, especially with the power of God on their side. I mean, I do believe that people CAN change...I'm just not sure people actually choose TO change.
I guess I worry that most people change, not because they want to, but because they think it'll improve their image (a la Mariah, Diddy, J Lo, etc.). And therefore changes aren't real, they're just surface. I mean, how often do people change when things are going well? For sure I only make promises of improved organization after I miss a flight because I couldn't find my driver's license. I make a pledge of healthier eating after an evening eating lots of chips and salsa and drinking margaritas at Ninfa's.
I've had a few family members of late who have made some pretty serious promises--they'll stop drinking, stop doing drugs, stop having affairs. But the only reason they started making those promises was because they lost their jobs, their families, and much to our (and their) dismay their teeth in the process. I'm not one who needs to believe their promises of change--they don't live with me, owe me money, or have responsibility for anything in my life. Still I have to wonder--should those who need to believe in the possibility of change believe?
I don't have an answer to this, I guess I just have the question.
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4 comments:
Good morning Shani! There's a Christian (or maybe it's Buddhist--they're all the same to me) saying that goes something like, "You can't step into the same river twice."
Everything changes all the time--the only constant is change. I guess people are just really good at clinging to their old images of self or insisting on the old images of others, even though we each wake up evry morning brand new.
Yeah, I think that's some Buddhism-ness right there. Namaste! Or as Dave and Jung like to say, Nifamaste!
Kargil and its lessons
This sad string of failures holds an important lesson in history. The Congress has always been a party held together by a personality - first the Mahatma, later Nehru, and now Sonia Gandhi.
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People do not change and/or become someone else. As for celebrities, they are changing their image, a new marketing package.
As for us regular folks - when someone tells you that you changed - they are only viewing new layers of YOU. Through life we shed layers and expose certain facets of ourselves at different times, and therefore to our peers who don't really know us, we appear that we have changed.
The last anonymous comment is an interesting insight. (well, you too monifa--the two folks trying to sell something??? a bit less insightful). Anyway, thanks for sharing! Definitely something to think about.
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