Skip to main content

Fame is Fleeting



Crazy hypothetical: Fame is Fleeting *


You have a choice between forms of fame.

#1. You can be famous for a specific role (like a spokesperson for a national company; i.e. Flo from Progressive, or the Maytag Man) Everyone will know you (recognize) but not know who you are (name, anything else about you) This role will make you a good amount of money and comfortable lifestyle but not super rich. This will be all you will ever do but people will remember you after your gone

#2. You will be infamous, everyone will know you but for something negative. (Think Steve Bartman or reality show “villain”) You will have a mark in history that no one will ever forget and everyone will know all about you. This role won’t make you much money and be the sum of your career.

#3. You will be “That guy” the person that has lots of roles in lots of movie and shows but is never the lead actor (sometimes referred to character actors). People might recognize you but not know your name. This role will make you a good amount of money and comfortable lifestyle but not super rich. Your career will be varied and interesting but you will be totally forgotten when it is over.

#4. You will uber famous but only to a limited number of people (i.e. the most famous person in theoretical physicist , star of sport no one watches) Those that are in that group will think you are the greatest ever but no one outside of the group will much care who you are. This role will make you very wealthy and you will have an interesting career but be forgotten about very quickly.

Which one do you choose? Which one would you not choose? Which one do you think matches the life of Jesus best?

*Crazy Hypothetical is a mental game that gives you a conditional choice that gets you thinking about a subject. I used these for several years as discussion starters in Bible class. Since fame is the huge goal among teens. It is an interesting way to get them to take a look at what fame means.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Know All Those Words, But That Sentence Makes No Sense To Me

  Let’s say you travel back in time six hundred years or so.  Luckily, you happen across a fellow that speaks English.  Upon hearing your tale, he describes you as nice, smart, and handsome.  Wouldn’t you feel good?   You shouldn’t.  As Sol Steinmetz in his book, Semantics Antics , explains; Nice originally meant someone who was foolish, ignorant, senseless, or absurd (middle English 1300). Smart for the first 300 years of its use meant causing pain, sharp, cutting, or severe, a sense that survives in the idiom "smart as a whip.” Handsome wasn’t complimentary. When coined around 1425, it just meant easily handled; it didn’t have its current positive connotation until 1590.   You might think he said you were a kind, intelligent, good looking bloke, when in reality he said you were a foolish pain easily dealt with.   Words have an annoying habit of changing meaning over time in the same language and it becomes even more compli...
Post a Comment
Read more

Master Your Self

  In a contest for the toughest president of the United States, it would be hard to go against Theodore Roosevelt.  He was known for his “manly” pursuits hunting big game, climbing the Matterhorn, participating in boxing match while president. (These weren’t play fights, he lost the vision on one eye because of them!)  Once before he was about to give a speech an assassin shot him in the chest.  Roosevelt refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech, still wearing his blood-soaked shirt!   Teddy might have become tough but he wasn’t born that way.  He was a sickly child that suffered from severe asthma that almost proved fatal.  As was a young boy, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and advised him to get a desk job and not strain himself.  He was homeschooled because of his many illnesses and spent most of his time indoors.   But then as a teen his father, whom Teddy Roosevelt revered, told his son, “ ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Until Midnight

    In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back.       I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...
Post a Comment
Read more