Today's fun fact: My favorite movie is Pirates of the Caribbean.
Let's do a little activity. First, name 5 winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Got it? Maybe? No googling! Ok. Now name 15 actors. Next, how about your state representatives and senators? And for the last category, list 15 singers.
How did you do? I'm guessing that you aced the actors and singers, and could've gotten way more than just 15 of each. And you maybe got 1 Nobel laureate and possibly your district representative and a senator for good measure?
I recently did an activity like this during one of my organization meetings at school, and I completely failed on any category that wasn't pop culture related. At first I blamed myself for being totally ignorant about my government or important scientists. And while I am definitely responsible for my own ignorance, I also think there is another culprit. Check out any website like Yahoo, which has news stories on the main page. Other than the how-to cooking articles and heartwarming stories, every article is about a current movie being made, or what Leonardo DiCaprio eats for breakfast, or how many people watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians, or who is performing at the Grammys. And this really made me think about who we hold high in our society and who gets virtually ignored.
Now, there's nothing wrong with enjoying your favorite actors on the big screen or learning every fact about the latest British boy band. I am totally guilty of this. But the thing that people tend to forget is that these famous people are just people. Robert Downey Jr. isn't actually Iron Man, sad as it is to think about. He's a person whose job is to act in movies. Same goes for singers. They provide entertainment for us with their music. If they weren't idolized as they are, they could have a second job as an elementary school teacher or something.
I don't really know how these thoughts appeared in my head, but I'm glad they did. I have been idolizing these people for far too long. From now on when I watch a movie, I am going to focus on the characters and the story rather than how perfect Jennifer Lawrence is. Because she isn't perfect. She's just a girl, an actress, made to appear perfect with the help of writers, directors, and make-up artists.
I hope you understand or maybe relate to my thoughts. Lately I've just been trying to focus on what really matters in life, which is a whole different blog post's worth of conversation… Maybe I'll get to it one day. But for now I hope you have a wonderful day and stay warm, wherever you are!
Hope to hear from you in the comments :)
Shelly
Oh, and I googled those people I quizzed you over. Here are 5 Medicine/Physiology laureates: Sir Alexander Fleming (he discovered penicillin), Randy W. Schekman and James E. Rothman
(they studied vesicle transport in cells), Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (the salivating dog guy!) and James Dewey Watson (he worked on the structure of DNA). I bet you've heard of at least one of those. And my state has a lot of representatives, but my senators are Joe Donnelly and Dan Coats. So, I learned something new today. Yay!
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