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Idols - Column by Gery Seidl

Gery Seidl

As a cabaret artist, I am often asked if I have a role model, and every time I have to think for a moment before finally answering "no". To name a role model by name would also be very dangerous, since man strives constantly to compare. "He's like he - wants to copy him - a cheap copy". Furthermore, I do not know if a role model would suffice.

There are people who claim that Friedensreich Hundertwasser had tried to copy the great Antonio Gaudí. Granted, there are similar features, but there are two personalities who have expressed their idea in their own way. One was fortunate to have been born earlier. Gaudí. A fantasy. A visionary. An obsessed and certainly to a certain extent a madman. Gaudí lived for what he did. He has never seen the grand vision of his church, but the mere fact of taking on a project of this magnitude makes him a role model. Today as then, unlike everyone else. Unique.
Is it the uniqueness that turns idols into idols? Why the curious company wants to know what Michael Jackson has taken for breakfast, what hair shampoo Mariah Carey uses or how many guitars Slash has hanging at home? How do you live? What are you doing?

Perhaps Mr. Max Mustermann is an example to our society without the masses being actively aware of it. I think we should go and look for the hero in us.

And why do not we care so much about how Max Mustermann wears his hair today? Because Max Mustermann does not do anything special - we believe. But maybe this Mr. Max is an example to our society without the masses being actively aware of it. Maybe he is a quarrelsome spirit in the little for justice? One who gets up when he scents injustice. One who finds joy in his profession and still pays taxes. A father of two children, who still likes to wake up next to his wife after 20 years marriage and loves every wrinkle in her beautiful face. Of course he also sees the Botox faces of the tuned ladies on TV, but they do not touch him. She is it. Mrs. Mustermann. The home checks everything. From family doctor to cook, tour guide and house teacher. She, who covers so many areas and then only carries the title Housewife. This is not a ticket to the red carpet at the Bambiverleihung. There is no Oscar for that.

The Mustermannleben does not sound exciting. Artig, but not exciting. And yet there may be a hero in it, only it is one of the quiet ones. The model children will probably find him uncool, but the day will come, where they too will appreciate his values. An Oscar for your life's work can only be given by the family, the smallest cell in society, but in my opinion the most important. It's the quiet heroes who make someone else big. By asking what he eats, by taking care of his clothes, by receiving him impressively, when he gets out of one of the 25 limos.
We listen to their music, we like the pictures, we love the rhetoric ... you could continue this list endlessly. The stars, the muses of our time, cover something that seems to be missing from us, that we have not yet discovered or that we would not dare to reveal publicly. It often happens that alleged role models lose their luster when they get to know each other. But conversely, it is possible to find size in the previously unknown.

If we do not rediscover the art of failure, then we will not find new ways. We will not be able to master the new demands of time and our thinking on the old paths.

I think we should go and look for the hero in us. Spend time recognizing what makes us different. Find moments that touch us. Looking for encounters that inspire us. Recognize who we are and why we are here. Then we can fail more dignified.
Expressing an opinion with backbone and understanding and not believing everything that is given to you. The ones we choose - we choose, and I'm tired of being constantly confronted with the lesser evil. If we do not rediscover the art of failure, then we will not find new ways. We will not be able to master the new demands of time and our thinking on the old paths. The recognizable regression, which is transported to us every day through media, is lost in the powerlessness of "reading over". As neighboring countries and their (still) elected leaders increasingly begin to restrict freedom of expression and press freedom, we will have to experience a time that my generation knows only from history books.
I think the time is right for new heroes. The shoes of a Nelson Mandela, a Vaclav Havel, a Rosa Parks and more. are huge, but who does not say that one day they could fit another. Thus, they will always be the heroes and role models of one or more generations. The loud idols in the spotlight and the quiet idols whose names and faces rarely find in the light. And just as the idols will always be, so will those who make them. A symbiosis. Do not seek the light, but become the light.

Photo / Video: Gary Milano.

Written by Gery Seidl

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