This Weeks Vibe
This week’s piece is about putting other people on a pedestal and forgetting your own worth. It also includes a mindfulness meditation, the tarot and astrology for the week, and the state of the world
There’s something that happens when you look at people from a distance.
Maybe it’s a beautiful person across the room. Maybe it’s a singer, an actor, a politician, a spiritual teacher, a religious figure. Doesn’t matter. The second you put distance between you and them, you stop seeing a person. You start seeing an image. A symbol. Something elevated. Something better. Something above you.
That’s where people get lost.
Because once you put somebody on a pedestal, you stop seeing them clearly. And worse, you stop seeing yourself clearly.
You’re not looking at a whole person anymore. You’re looking at a projection. You’re filling in the blanks with perfection. You’re taking the parts you like, the parts you envy, the parts you wish you had, and you’re building a whole person out of those pieces. You imagine they’ve got the life, the body, the power, the peace, the beauty, the truth, the wisdom — whatever it is you think you’re missing.
But you don’t actually know that.
You see somebody gorgeous and think, I wish I looked like that. You see somebody famous and think, I wish I had that life. You see somebody spiritual and think, they must be closer to God than I am. You see a politician and think that person is going to fix everything. You see a religious figure and think, they were so holy they must’ve been beyond what we are.
No. That’s the lie.
We turn people into more than they are. Then we hand them our attention, our admiration, our self-worth, our power. And we do it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
But it’s dangerous.
Because the famous singer still gets sick, still gets lonely, still makes stupid choices. The beautiful person you can’t stop staring at still has pain, still has fear, still has a private life that looks nothing like what you’re projecting onto them. The politician people defend like he’s their personal savior does not know them, does not think about them, and is not living his life for them. The spiritual teacher you think is so elevated is still a person with an ego, with wounds, with blind spots, with a human mind.
Even religious figures. People paint them like they were floating six inches off the ground, untouched by the body, untouched by pain, untouched by what it actually feels like to be here. But if someone was truly in this world, they were in a body. They got tired. They got hungry. They felt things. People don’t like hearing that because they want holiness to look nothing like humanity. But maybe that’s the whole problem. Maybe people are so uncomfortable with being human that they keep trying to turn everyone they admire into something less human and more mythical.
Same with angels. People talk about angels like they’re sitting around thinking they’re better than you. They’re not. If anything, they’d tell you they just have a different role. A different vantage point. Not better. Not more worthy. Different.
But people love hierarchy. People love putting someone up high and standing underneath them. Because the second you do that, you don’t have to stand in your own power. You can just look up, obey, envy, worship, follow, defend, imitate. It’s easier than showing up as yourself.
That’s what’s happening everywhere now.
And we just watched a real-time example of it play out in this country.
People stopped treating a politician like a politician. They started treating him like a team. Like a religion. Like something you pledge yourself to and defend no matter what. And once that happened, something shifted. It wasn’t about policy anymore. It wasn’t even about the person anymore. It became about identity. People’s whole sense of who they are got wrapped up in a red hat and a handful of buzzwords. That became them. That replaced them. And the person they handed all of that to, the one they marched for, fought for, cut people out of their lives for, that person doesn’t know their name. Doesn’t think about them and has made decisions that have directly hurt the very people defending him the hardest. But they can’t see it. Because when you make someone your identity, you stop being able to see them clearly. You stop being able to see yourself clearly. You’re not a person with your own values anymore. You’re a follower. And that is exactly what I’m talking about. That is the pedestal dynamic taken to its most dangerous place.
That’s what’s happening everywhere now.
With celebrities. With beauty. With wealth. With politicians. With spiritual teachers. With religious figures. With anyone, you can turn into a symbol, because symbols are easier than reality.
Reality is messier.
Reality says the beautiful person has problems you’re not seeing. Reality says some people gain weight on purpose, dress down on purpose, make themselves smaller on purpose because they’re exhausted from being looked at. Reality says the thing you envy in somebody else might be the exact thing that’s made their life harder. Reality says fame has a price. Reality says the life you’re staring at from the outside almost never looks the same from the inside.
But people don’t want reality. They want the picture.
And that’s why I can’t stand when people say I wish I were them.
You don’t know that. You might like one thing about them. Their face. Their voice. Their career. Their confidence. Fine. But that’s not the same as wanting their whole life. That’s not the same as understanding what it actually costs to be them. Every trait comes with something. Every image has a reality behind it. Every life has a private side you don’t see.
You can admire someone without handing yourself away. You can be inspired without shrinking. You can appreciate beauty, talent, wisdom, and strength without deciding it only exists in somebody else.
But people forget that part.
The second you decide somebody is better than you, more worthy than you, more divine than you, you’ve already given too much away. And the world trains people to do this from the start. Pick a hero. Pick a guru. Pick a leader. Pick a body type. Pick a face. Pick a life. Then spend your energy chasing it, defending it, copying it, or kneeling to it.
Why?
Why are you at someone else’s feet when you haven’t even introduced yourself to yourself yet?
This isn’t just about envy or insecurity. It’s about how we see people. It’s about how fast we strip someone of their humanity and then use our fantasy about them to make ourselves feel smaller. It’s about how people praise everybody except themselves, and I don’t mean that in some fake self-love way. I mean it straight. The beauty, the truth, the power, the talent, the worth you keep admiring in other people — you think it only lives over there. It doesn’t. You just carry it differently. You express it differently. It doesn’t look like theirs. Good. It shouldn’t.
They already did them.
This Mindfulness Meditation is for anyone who’s been looking at other people and feeling like they somehow have something you don’t. It’s about what happens when admiration turns into comparison, and comparison turns into forgetting yourself. This piece is here to help you come back to your own center, stop putting other people above you, and remember that someone else shining does not make you any less.
