Extreme Spiritual Makeover
January 26, 2011
by Mark Palermo(for henrymakow.com)
Thomas Merton once asked, " Who has less to say than the mass mind?"
I am reminded of Merton's words every time my wife watches Extreme Makeover. Perhaps you have seen it. They take unattractive people and improve their looks, sometimes dramatically.
Each time I watch, I ask, "What if people redirected part of that energy to developing their minds? What if the audience applauded her emotional growth, her spiritual advancement, or even her new found political consciousness?"
My version of Extreme Makeover unfolds this way: Instead of the contestant starting out as a wallflower, she is beautiful before she becomes a contestant, but she is also ignorant, shallow and self-absorbed.
In my pilot show, a young woman named "Jane Doe" transforms herself through rigorous study, discipline and self reflection.
After the months-long process, her family and friends are in the studio audience anticipating the unveiling of Jane's new "self."
A nervous buzz pervades the air. On a stage, dressed in jeans and a black turtle neck sweater, Jane is seated at a conference table surrounded by Bulgarian art students, anarchists and homosexual poets.
She is shapely, slightly plump; but somehow more attractive than the skinny, tense person she had once been. Her face is relaxed, shows more character and- can this be said in America?- more womanly, radiating a mature, but earthy feminine essence.
She looks up, and faces the camera: "Just think, I used to be a mindless consumer of fashion and beauty products; preoccupied with my looks and status. It's no wonder I needed antidepressants. And of course the only guys I attracted were cruel, unfeeling and egotistical. And I blamed all men for my malaise because it was easier that way."
The crowd applauds politely. The camera moves in closer: "I have read 41 books in the past year and developed my intellect, my world view, and my political consciousness!"
She presses on. "I used to blow hundreds of dollars on clothes each month to fill my existential emptiness. I affected an attitude of cool detachment, while eaten up by feelings of inadequacy. I wore the mask of false confidence, but I was an impostor." The audience is applauding, this time more loudly. She has touched them. Her parents are weeping with happiness.
Now the MC is interviewing Jane's Mom.
"We always worried that our Janey would become another mindless pyramid builder in the New World Order. But now that she is an autonomous, self reflective person that shows solidarity for other people... Well, my husband Ted and I are just so pleased..."
She dabs a tear from her cheek.
The camera returns to Jane, who is smoking an unfiltered French cigarette. "Now that I am self reflective, I'm reading Spengler's Decline of the West; next month I am tackling Proust and Genet. I am questioning my teachers, my government, and most of all, myself. I am planning a trip to Cancun, not just to lie on the beach, have anonymous sex, and stumble around drunk in clubs, but to immerse myself in the folklore and Mayan culture of Mexico, where I'll actually stay sober and visit the pyramids!"
The studio audience rises from their seats. Some men whoop and stamp their feet. Women swoon. Other men stare in amazement - as if in the presence of the sacred or profane. The resounding applause shakes the very rafters.
What a makeover. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! A young soul has bloomed: and a provincial girl has become a self reflective woman... Homeland Security has been notified.
http://www.freshjournalism.com
--
Mad Take on "Grease"
Jennifer said (January 28, 2011):
Jennifer Replies to Vivian:
"I am going to hug my husband extra hard, for he knows my spirit, not just my body, he has all of me and I have all of him."
It is a matter of perspective and relative to what? Thus, if we were to put people's spirit "level" on a scale from 1 to 100 for arguments sake, generally, most people would fall in a 20 to 40 range and if you were a 30 and your husband is a 25 -that is not going to threaten him and it is easy for your husband to "know all of your spirit".
But if you were Jennifer and walked in my shoes being Native American from a renown family of shamans, aka psychic healers, and were spirit level 95 then you would learn to keep your mouth shut.
It does not matter if my husband understands or consciously knows why he appreciates and loves me. The body and the spirit are intimately intertwined and circle upon each other. Even you resort back to expressing yourself via physicality - a hug instead of throwing your husband an ethereal cosmic kiss.