All the Followed

imagine if all your heroes, all your idols, all your “spiritual leaders,” who have supposedly written books (or had books written for them/ by them), whose “lives” have been depicted as such by those who never lived when they lived, who never saw what these people were supposed to look like, who tell us that they themselves never had even an iota of ulterior motive in the making of these characters--- imagine if the characters themselves were all in a room today, a room somewhere in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by psychiatrists & sociologists, psychologists & representatives of every normative leadership franchise (full of presidents of nations, CEO’s of companies, heads of military, heads of churches, temples, mosques, etc.)--- imagine that they actually let some of us “common people” into the room as well & then imagine if those in charge of the gathering allowed these supposed heroes & idols to speak. one after another, those who have been looked up to for guidance, those who have been painted on walls, formed into sculptures, those who have been killed for, those who have “inspired” whole nations to kill each other, those who have been talked to by the zillions on bended knees with their eyes closed for century upon century---they all spoke & as they did, those watching who hold power, those who gear the cultural trends for our puny existence & all of us “common people” as well, began to diagnose these individuals in accordance with the parlance of our times, whereby soon, these characters would be found to have multiple personalities…they’d be manic- depressive…they’d be schizophrenic…they’d be writhing with all the imperfections, chemical imbalances, phobias, flaws & disorders that are used now to write off every single aspect of human behavior that extends even the slightest outside that perfect little square (like a child coloring hard along the lines in a coloring book…never venturing outside them) & most of all, all these once followed would be found to be nothing more than as wretched as the rest of us---one could go further & assume that no books would be written about them, no books would be “written by them” & in a few years, much less than how long they presently have all been looked up to for the ages, all these followed would disappear & yet, without any of them, we would all still get on--- yes we would.