It has some similarities to the
"Everyone Who Looks Happy Is Happy" myth. No society in history has been exposed to the extent our society has to the bombardment
of visual stimuli that is so fraudulent. Every society has those who make the same false promises. Every society has had its
soft-core pornography that produces its visual fantasies. But none has ever made these quite so readily available in quite
such dramatic ways.
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Lights. Camera angles. Body building
machines. Beauty aids. Cosmetic surgery. Artistic airbrushes. Exotic music. Virtual reality. All can make a mere mortal man
look like a god and a mere mortal woman look like a goddess. Body odors disappear. Disease is covered up. Facial blemishes
are glossed over. Emotional breakdowns are hidden. So we live in the creation of a fantasy world to the point that we actually
believe that the rock stars and movie stars are real people. We do the same with our so-called "men of God" and "women of
God." Watch out if you have too much of a fixation on a particular religious leader. Watch that person closely enough and
you will see his or her feet of clay.
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Through the media, we make superheroes
of mere mortals, and then we are crushed when we see our fantasies fall before our eyes.
Normally we discard our media creations,
forgetting that they are still alive, when they are no longer useful. Where now are the Playboy and Penthouse centerfolds
of the 1960s and 1970s? Most of them are still alive somewhere. They are all still human beings, created in the very image
of God. But we made them out to be so much more than human, while at the same time so much less than human, that they are
turned into commodities and thrown away when they are no longer useful. Somewhere they sit, wondering what happened, why no
one calls anymore, looking on in broken cynicism as new subjects are made into objects and rocketed into prominence, only
to be discarded when their usefulness is over.
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The truth is that every one of
us is life-sized. Every one of us has our needs. Every one of us battles with weight--too little or too much. Every one of
us is either too tall or too short, has too much hair or too little, is too rich or too poor. Every one of us yearns to be
accepted by God and each other. The truth is there is nothing ultimately lonlier than the media myth, as the biography of
Marilyn Monroe states so clearly. Linda Evans, Madonna, Sharon Stone, are all aging. Jennifer Aniston will too. We all do,
don't we?
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