Why Does Fame Leave Us Empty?

Thanks for visiting Bible Mountain. This is the third in a series of parables about the meaning and purpose of life. This series is designed for people who are trying to make sense of the pain and suffering we see in the world around us. This parable explains why fame does not bring fulfillment. This parable is called The Musician. Watch the video or scroll down to read a transcript.

Transcript:

Hi, thanks for watching Bible Mountain. This is part of a series of parables about the meaning and purpose of life. 

This series is comprised of six groups of parables. In the first group I am explaining why things like success, fame, money, pleasure, and power do not bring the meaning and fulfillment to life we are seeking. The following parable is called The Musician. It illustrates why fame does not bring fulfillment to life.

There was a young musician who wanted to be famous. He started out performing in small towns in front of a couple dozen people. He had success doing that so he started booking performances in medium-sized cities where he performed in front of hundreds of people. He signed up with a management agency.  His manager started booking him in large cities so now he was traveling all across the country performing in front of audiences of thousands of people. 

One day his manager called with news that he was going on a world tour, and some of his performances would be broadcast on television. The musician was ecstatic. This meant he was going to perform in front of millions of people. This is what he had been working toward for years.

After weeks of practicing, the musician started his world tour. For the first couple weeks, it was great. He loved performing. He loved standing on stage hearing the cheers and applause of his audience. But after a while the travel got tiresome. Over the years, as his fame had grown, he had gotten busier and busier, and now he was so busy he had very little time to himself. He didn’t even have time to enjoy the fact that he was traveling the world. Furthermore, his manager kept telling him to do this, don't do that, say this, don’t say that, wear this, and don't wear that. It was now to the point he wasn't really himself anymore, he was just a machine spitting out whatever his handler demanded.

One day, as he was working his way through a throng of fans, he tripped, fell, and landed on his kneecap very hard. Immediately, a massive amount of pain shot through his body. As he was lying on the ground, writhing in pain, trying to figure out if his knee was broken, his fans continued to shove things in his face, demanding that he sign them. At that moment, it was clear his fans really didn't care about him, all they wanted was a signature from somebody famous.

The next day, as he was lying in bed resting his knee, he started asking himself when he would consider his quest to be famous to be complete. He had always wanted to be famous. The picture he always had in his mind was that at some point in his life, there would be a day when he would be able to tell himself that he was famous, and that that pinnacle would give him meaning and purpose for the rest of his life. 

The reality was very different. Back when he was performing for hundreds of people, he wanted to perform for thousands. When he was performing for thousands, he wanted to perform for millions. Now that he was performing for millions of people, it still wasn't enough. So he asked himself, “What would be enough?”

He concluded that no amount of fame would ever be enough. There are billions of people on earth, and no matter how many people came to know about him, there would always be people who didn't know about him. Therefore, his quest to be famous would never end, meaning that fame would never bring the peace and fulfillment to life that he was seeking.

Many of you try to find fulfillment in life by being famous. Ultimately, fame leaves you empty because there's no such thing as completing the goal. No matter how many people in the world know about you, there are always more people who don't know about you. It’s not possible to get to the point where every person in the world knows about you; therefore, the emptiness you are trying to fill with fame never gets filled. 

Also, fame is a vicious cycle. Once you become known by many people, you have to keep promoting yourself and stay in front of those people, or they will lose interest in you, forget about you, and then you will lose some of your fame.

Meanwhile, as you are pursuing fame, you don't really know if your fans actually care about you, or if they're only interested in bragging to their friends that they met somebody famous. 

Finally, as you seek to be famous, you can't really be yourself. When you're pursuing fame, you have to do things to draw attention to yourself and keep the interest of your fan base. Often times these are things you wouldn't normally do if you weren't seeking fame. 

There's nothing wrong with being famous. Fame gives people a voice and platform for accomplishing good things. However, we have to understand that ultimately fame does not bring meaning, purpose, nor fulfillment to life. 

Thanks again for visiting Bible Mountain. I greatly appreciate you spending some of your valuable time watching my videos and reading my articles. The next parable in this series will explain why possessions do not bring meaning to life. If you haven't already done so, please join either my email list or my Patreon Page in order to make sure you receive that and all future parables in this series. 

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Once again, thank you for watching Bible Mountain.