The search for a new idol

Are you the next American Idol?" asks the Fox broadcasting Web site, announcing its upcoming auditions for the show's second season. \nI think we should take them seriously.\nAfter all, who do we look toward today to inspire us but our idols? Music, movies, talk show hosts? Is there anything short of 15 cent drafts that excites us beyond words? But what happened to that great orator or poet who called us to better ourselves from the inside out?\nHenry David Thoreau's brand of civil disobedience instilled a desire to act, to be representative men in the likes of Martin Luther King and Gandhi. Can our generation claim such a powerful stirrer of men's souls? \nWe've had some great men too, right? So, they had civil rights -- we have the Foreman Grill. Progress.\nIn asking around, "Who do you think inspires people to change, to better themselves?" A few replies pointed toward an infamous mustached man -- Dr. Phil McGraw.\nIs this what has become of inspiration? Oprah Winfrey calls him, "a walking, talking in-your-face reality check." But is the Dr. Phil brand of re-awakening of the same caliber as Walt Whitman's? \n"You're either going to get real about fat, or you're going to get real fat," pronounces Dr. Phil. \nAh, my soul is cleansed. \nOr what about one of Phil's more existential analogies?\n"I'd line them up like crows on a clothesline, just-just-just set them up there and just hold forth right here," he decrees.\nIndeed Dr. Phil, indeed.\nAside from being completely ignorant of whatever old-time proverb he was referencing in the latter statement, his first comment particularly infuriates me.\nIs that how to invigorate the soul of one seeking guidance? "Get real" seems to be a polite way of saying "get over it," which I don't think many people are prepared or necessarily have to do. \nSince when was inspiration a demand? If I want to change, I want to agree, be convinced and develop a desire of my own -- not be muscled into it by some guy who's stylist apparently thinks the Gallagher look is in.\nInstead, I offer the Whitman approach.\n"I celebrate myself."\nWhy "get real about fat" when you can see a body where "not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile."\nA light in the dark, and it does not arise from a boot camp. Instead, the words of a funny working-class man serve as a beacon of optimism.\nWhere in our generation do we attempt to find inspiration in the positive? If it isn't Phil's cynical realism aiding us, it is only the dramatic tales of the downtrodden or wasted youth that give us courage. \nWhy do we have to wait for a loved one to contract cancer or fall victim to a drunk driver before they can instill us with hope? Why can't those individuals do so now, and today? \nIt seems we are a generation of masochists, searching for inspiration in bullies and nightmares.\nIf our higher aspirations rise from these murky waters, I sometimes wonder why we're surprised when our kids sink to lows deeper than conceived possible.\nWhat we need is a true American Idol.\nThis contest will be judged every day, and the only people who get voted off are those who quit and would rather be handed their reality check on daytime TV than seek it out for themselves, in nature or the greater works of those loved ones around us, simply living.\n"Are you the next American Idol?"\nLet's certainly hope so.