American Idol?

After a long reprieve, I am...

...Still working off of my brother's computer. Unfortunately, my hard drive was in such bad condition that the technician had to take the hard drive out of the computer and manually remove the data from my HD, and put it on the new one. Oh well. I thought you, the reader, could use another post.
This is an essay I wrote around a year ago, when American Idol season 4 was starting. This is AI season 5, and this essay seems to be relevant to exactly the same thing it was a year ago (besides that, I'm taking the wimpy route of posting old material here!). Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, in all it's unedited glory.

I've been watching the aforementioned show lately, as a way of wasting time. As I watched, I was intrigued by the wide amount of people who came to the auditions. Of course I immediately began forming my favorites out of the contestants, and also my least favorites. I started to subconciously judge them partially on the clothes they wore, the stance they took in front of the judges, the attitude they had, etc. It was a lot of fun.
I enjoy seeing the human nature come to light, even in an American Idol contest. The realization that didn't hit me until later was that I was comparing myself to these people. I put myself in their place and shuffled through thoughts of how I would do things differently than those who came. I think that part of the outworking of the human nature is to glorify one's self into something that just isn't, something that never existed and never will.
In my opinion, the whole idea surrounding American Idol, that the person who wins will be the next American Idol, is backwards in my mind. In my line of thinking, the true American Idol is the very person who you see day to day, the image you are first aware of when you wake up in the morning, or when you look in the mirror. The true American Idol is myself. I worship me, and with the power of me, I can be great too.
In Webster's Dictionary, the definition for idol is:
"One that is adored, often blindly or excessively."
Hey, just as America says, look out for number one. God helps those who help themselves. Our entire thought paradigm is centered around individualistic idealism. We worship the one we know we can trust the most. The reason so many people are delusional performing on American Idol is because they feel the emotion that all humans do when faced with the complexities of life. They imagine themselves stepping out of their own limited bounds, expanding beyond their personal physicality an emotionality. They want to be part of a great cause, beyond their sphere of influence, even if that cause is a selfish cause coming from a desire to have celebrity status. And promoting themselves seems to them the only way to find that comfort. Everyone fights for the right to be free of the self that confines them, so they try to expand it by inflating their actual capacity for their own respective lives. In taking on this mindset, they ultimately will fall, and be disappointed. It is difficult to say in some respects that people stand united. Not because of the bitter differences that humans display in opinions on social issues, or even in religion. The reason people no longer stand united is that when we promote individualism, the culture falls to ruin. When there is no reason to stand up for each other, then we fall into our own selfish worlds, and the rights of "me" trump the rights of everyone. And with that kind of thinking there can only be bitterness and division.
I don't exactly know what to tell someone who is caught up in that mindset. I certainly can't say that being loyal to the people as a whole has always paid off, completely. I mean, this is a fallen world. People aren't perfect. But God isn't looking for perfect people. He's looking for willing people. I'd change the previously mentioned statement above to, "God helps those who cannot help themselves, through those who can, and choose to give it to others." Kind of complicated, but the idea is that humans were never meant to be self-sustaining creatures. We were created to accomplish great things, but only through the channel of other people.
If we could learn the gist of giving, we could reap the benifits of receiving the rewards of being part of something bigger than ourselves.
We can't be bigger than we are by our own merit, but we can through changing others. That is what brings expanse to the next level in truth. Only then will we be content to be who we are. Only then will we be on the track to find our identity. Hopefully we can look to each other to bring a blessing, and give the only thing we really have to give, ourselves.