A blatant disregard

There comes a point every so often, where I watch the world around me going to hell and I whisper to myself "WTF?"  How hard can it possibly be, to just be normal?

I just finished watching a bit of "breaking news", which turns out in this bias world of reporting, isn't so noteworthy.  And the "entertainment news" is that Lindsay Lohan is in trouble again, still, for all the same shit she's been in trouble for, FOR YEARS!  Seriously.  This is going on since at least 2007 folks.  She is no longer noteworthy for anything but getting into trouble.  She's a washed up has been that maintains her spotlight and her wealth by being dumb.  Yep.  And the world sops it up like it's the bread basket and olive oil at their favourite restaurant.  Sheesh.  Even Charlie Sheen had a very short breakdown and returned to normal.  In fact, he could have spiraled like 6 times in the time Lindsay has taken to deal with this crap.

Which leads me to this line of thinking.  I said "normal" which is a real faux pas in mental health circles because it implies that the fringe has no place in it.  But I meant it, and feel exactly the opposite.  Normal to me, is anyone who deals with the stuff of life without twisting it to self benefit.  "Normal" in my mind is a pretty wide umbrella, capturing both what makes us all alike, AND what makes us different.  For me, the "fringe" is all self serving, and intentional, therefore, abnormal.

as defined in Wikipedia

There's nothing in any sort of mental illness that supports that kind of stupidity.  The absolute difference between stupidity and ignorance is that one is intentional and the other is legitimate.  Ms. Lohan may very well be affected by depression and other rife illnesses that lead her to want attention, BUT, I can promise you that no one needs or wants that kind of attention if they are normal and ill.  So what makes her special?  She obviously loves the attention she's getting, or she wouldn't carry this on.  And apparently the world loves paying that kind of attention, or they simply wouldn't.  And instead of being plastered on the front of every newspaper in the world, taking time away from more serious and life altering events say, like the war in Syria, she'd be checked into jail or a rehab clinic and she'd either succeed or fail, and carry on with the next phase of her life without impacting the lives of so many others.

You may say, I'm not really impacted...I can just turn off the tv or flip the page in my newspaper, but I have to be honest with you, I'm so seriously sick and tired of having to do that.  If I don't like pepper on my pasta, cool, no pepper.  It's easy to disregard the pepper mill on my table top.  It's not on every single surface of my home preventing me from enjoying a meal anywhere without pepper residue making it onto my plate.  That's what Lindsay Lohan, or more accurately, biased news and a sick and twisted population of ignoramuses are leaving me to do with my every day life.

fotosearch.com

But what bothers me most is both the lack of awareness that this is signalling a real demise of our population, AND worse still, that the general iq of our population is being so violently downgraded.  I'm not a genius, but even at the worst of times, I didn't stoop to such levels of idiocy and numbness that made functioning like a human being impossible.  We really are devolving if we allow ourselves and the insanity of the noise around us, continue to keep us from the geniuses that live in the quiet space in our minds.

In quiet; in solitude and in serenity and balance, live geniuses among us all.  The excess of this noise, is only comparable to brain washing and a steady cleansing/dimming of people who can navigate our world, and their own in particular, to something of greatness.

I remember growing up, my parents told me I could do and be anything I ever wanted to be.  As long as I worked hard, focused and put the effort and attention into it, I could do it.  Knowing that they were absolutely right, it makes me more adamant than ever that it's easy to just exist.  People do it all the time without getting locked up, photographed, and smeared through rags and orange jailer jumpers.  They range from slobs on their parents' basement sofas, to very successful people with healthy families and busy schedules.  Nice cars, nice homes, and comfortable lives.  And I know that living a clean, honest and simple life also means that no manner of money in any amount, could make a person act that dumb.  More money certainly makes room for more mistakes and bad gaffes, but it couldn't take away every ounce of common sense ever given to a person.  The only thing that could do that, is a willingness to disregard one's own moral centre for a public that eats it up and pays more money for opportunity to watch it.  Effectively dumbing down society, and lowering our own bars of excellence to dire levels.

I guess this has turned into a long rant, because I'm simply waiting for the arguments to start flying that poor Lindsay is sick, and needs help with addictive behaviours and depression.  I'm waiting for others to defend her poor soul to the end, because not being able to watch Lindsay spiral out of control, may in fact mean that we have to look inward and heal ourselves.  And I'm ever so tired of watching mental health used inappropriately as a crutch, when so many people out there with legitimate need for assistance, struggle.  We need examples of people who succeed living with mental illness, coping successfully with what can sometimes be catastrophic and debilitating challenges.  Please let Lindsay go, and focus your biased entertainment reports, on people who represent the real issues of our society, and who demonstrate how intelligence, hard work, effort and focus can change someone's stars.

photo pulled from photobucket.com (credits kantmann)