Enjoy the music. Submerge yourself in your own interpretation of the lyrics.

Bath in the rhythm.

Bask in the beat.

Do whatever you need to do to show your appreciation of beautiful music, but stop getting so excited about the artists themselves.

It’s somewhat difficult to say that I have a favorite artist. I call myself a single song buyer, because I seldom enjoy/listen to an album at a time; I’ll probably just enjoy a few songs from a large variety of artists.

When I listen to music, I listen to ONLY the music. I’ll admire the album cover for a couple of seconds and I’ll probably gawk over a pretty face but I’ll tend to focus on the music itself. I suppose that if I shifted focus, I’d probably associate a song with a certain artist instead of with a personal experience, which I prefer. I don’t know what the ultimate point of music is, but it’s not to fawn over people that we’ve never met.

I don’t care about the way the band formed. Don’t tell me about the four times they broke up. I’ll watch the music video but don’t expect me to have watched it beforehand. Why should I be concerned about the personal lives about singers, actors, and the like?

If we continue to obsess about ordinary people like this, we mentally categorize them as people who are just overall better than us, which would be a complete lie. Yes, maybe they do have better voices than us. They can probably write better lyrics than we can, but are they as fast of runners as us? Can they teach trig like my Calc teacher can? Can they knit as well as my grandma? These are just a few examples and simple ways to demonstrate that these so-called “stars” are not as special as we often designate them to be.

Inspiration is good. Having role models is an essential component of worthy success, but there comes a point when we’ve just got to stop glorifying them.

Go to a concert, if you must. It  will probably help you get over your obsession, and your expectation of perfection that you have of them, as soon as you see them up on stage, sweating, singing out of tune, and out of breath.

They’ll give a quality show, no doubt, but they are in no way perfect. There’s really no reason to care about what goes on in their lives.
And this opinion of mine also spills over into the realm of celebrities in general.

Why do we alienate celebrities? Do we just assume that since they’re famous and beautiful, that they’re better than us? LIES.

Also – why do we care about their lives? I’m guilty and hypocritical because I’m often obsessed with celebrities but I still think my approach is counterproductive. I become obsessed with a certain celebrity and I’ll either want to be them or marry them. I’ll envy their life over mine when really there’s not much to envy. Why do we have reality TV shows? Is it really just for shallow entertainment, or do some people actually wish they led such lives?

There’s corruption in that system. There’s airbrushing and photoshopping. Everyday, people get paid off to promote something that they would never even consider if there weren’t some economic incentive for them.

Yet, there are actually beautiful people, people born with features so delicate and picture-perfect that you can’t help but advertise their face. There are some people out there with extraordinary talents of singing, dancing, acting, etc. We should appreciate these talents, but limit just how much we appreciate them. Don’t forget to love yourself and your quirks, abilities, and special skills once in a while. Just because you’ve never been on an ad or TV doesn’t mean you’re less worthy than them.

Except maybe Neil Patrick Harris.