Everyone is Someone and Somebody is Nobody

In our modern age, Everyone can become Someone, but really, Somebody is Nobody.

Our media shines the star light (lime light), glitter and confetti on mediocrity. As a nation, we celebrate the "reality star" and "selfies" go "viral" within minutes to hours, creating Everyone into Someone and making true Somebodies into Nobodies.

I remember when excellence was celebrated and awarded. But then Somebody thought that Everybody should get an award for something so that he/she wouldn't feel like a Nobody. That's when mediocrity began to be popular and celebrated and shared. I guess that means as a nation, we share our celebration of mediocrity equally.

My logic might be off, but my logic usually isn't understood (or gets easily misunderstood), so don't feel too bad if the above makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If it does make sense, then I'll thank heaven I'm not the only one with a partially functioning neural network! :-)

I've always been one of the Nobodies. Nobody in particular, Nobody special. Took me a long time and a lot of pain to get comfortable with being a Nobody. Now, in mid-life (sorta), I'm learning I actually am Somebody to enough people-- "enough" meaning I make a positive difference in Someone's life, and that makes me happy.

So I can't find the version that I prefer, but here is a poem by Emily Dickinson, written c. 1861 (published in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. by Thomas H. Johnson, published by Little, Brown and Company-- hardcover):

          I'm Nobody! Who are you?
          Are you- Nobody - Too?
          Then there's a pair of us?
          Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

          How dreary - to be - Somebody!
          How public - like a Frog -
          To tell one's name - the livelong June -
          To an admiring Bog!

I've had an affection for this poem since I first read it. I suppose because Emily Dickinson is a preeminent author, and here we were together in writing, so to speak-- both Nobody! There's an alternate version to this which is one I'd first saw and memorized, but this one does make far more sense.

With so many "reality t.v." shows and every day people made into celebrities with their own personal media stalkers, this poem seems all the more meaningful. Frogs, the lot of them; perhaps they're toads. But croaking up cacophony for attention, perhaps a mate, not unlike the frogs here on our property that have started mating calls.

Did I just go way off topic? I can connect the dots, but I don't usually connect them by their "number" to reveal the design, I connect them by the design I see.

Well, I guess this Nobody had better get some rest. A new week begins tomorrow, and Garfield isn't the only one who hates Mondays!

~Cedeham~