Friday, June 3, 2011

Musicans, Athletes and Actors

We all rember growing up and wanting to be a singer or the star football player but what we never really thought about what a career in music or professional sports can REALLY be. And in recent years people have been debating as too why those careers seem to outshine all others when there importance is questionable. Here's my logic; why should people who through a ball 75 yards be praised over people who create vaccines for deadly illnesses who went to college for years to save lives. Why should a football player be paid millions for running and tackling people for a pigskin ball when people who save lives make less but have far more of an impact. When you really think about it you start to realize that we've bascially paid a bunch of jocks to hit eachother silly to distract us form the stressess of life. And we wonder why we've fallen behind other countries in academics. We are basically saying to our male youth that you can be paid millions of dollars for hitting eachother senseless instead of getting a good education. Most people would disagree saying, "But many go to college to play football and that's how they get noticed." Well that's true, but when are you going to use that education? If you make it to the professional level you're set for life, and once you get there you're going to be knocked silly. Then after all the head injurieswhat are you going to remember? How are you going to think straight? What good are you going to do society? You've spent years of honning your skills to catch and throw a pigskin ball, now after all your injuries you have your money. But what now? Drive your million dollar cars around? Great, thank-you for killing our enviorment and teaching our male youth they can achieve all they ever wanted fame, money success women, by hitting eachother senseless for the fun of it. I'm not saying that sports are a waste of time and resources, they are for entertainment and enjoyment for both the players and the spectators. What I'm saying is that the idea of a professional athelete is ridiculous. Why should people be paid to put their physical well being on the line for the enjoyment of others? And what is the point of sports? To accomplish a certain task task to get points? And the person with a certain number of points wins? To me that doesn't seem like it should be a career, more of a hobby. Just like a muscian, to me a muscian is a person who enjoys music to the point where they love it so much they write their own music. The reality of musicans today? Fame. Money. Power. Success. To me any muscian who strives for any one of those things is not a musican but instead a fraud. Someone who only seeks glory and doesnt care about the music itself. A true musican seeks the career for their love of music, not power. This raises my next question, should musicans get paid millions? My answer is no. While they should get paid I don't believe it should be in the millions. What are they getting paid for exactly? An amount of notes, sometimes lyrics that can be replayed and listened to? Is that really worth millions of dollars? If so why? Because it can be insprirng? Yes, as I right this I listen to music but usually just to tune the rest of the world out so I can be alone with my thoughts. Maybe that what we pay for the distractions. The escape it lends us, to be somewhere else for the moment.Again I ask the question is it worth millions, I don't think so. Like athletes what does it really offer society? I think the thing that should be most valued in society is understanding. And I personanlly don't think that music really offers us that. Not like science, it offers us a better understanding of us, our univers or speices our planet and the species that surround us. Can music offer us that? By this statement I'm not downing careers that don't have to do with science. Careers like teacher or social workers offer understanding to others, it passes along understanding to other poeple. Instead I'm questioning careers like acting, muscians and athletes, why are they so valued for the little they contribute to our understanding? Actors are also paid millions for roles in movies that really just, don't matter. No understanding is achevied just a temporary escape like watching sports or listening to music its an escape, entertainment. And I shall leave you with this thought: In our society is entertainment more important then understanding?