#52 Dollhouse by Bruce Springsteen

There is a scene in the movie “American Beauty” where the main character and his wife are about to get intimate on their sofa. They’ve been drifting apart for some time and no longer have any place at which they connect with each other. As they get closer to breaking a long built barrier, his wife tells him not to spill the glass he is holding on the sofa. “Jesus Christ”, he yells, “it’s just a couch”. She proceeds to tell him how expensive it is and any chance of intimacy rekindled is lost.

Society tells us that marriage equals a storybook wedding, a house, two cars or a minivan when the kids come along and there should be kids, dogs, cats, drapes, shower curtains and for a lucky some an inground pool.

Pursuing those things is a welcoming distraction. The work it takes to build the physical part of our life is easier than the work it takes building our emotional and spiritual worlds. It is easier and safer to stay in one place. Fear of growth or of change shows itself in the empty pursuits of everything but personal growth and leaves one feeling a constant void. Instead of chasing that void and discovering what and why it is, we chase instead things that can be easily fixed. If everything is in its place and everything as it should be on the outside, then I’ll feel right on the inside. But we never do.

The longer life is lived in avoidance of facing our own demons and fears and building ourselves a meaningful understanding of ourselves and the world, the more we risk losing, and the more we become a product of our own making. We veer further from anything real toward a plastic life. We become what we think we’re “supposed” to be rather than who we really are. We risk losing the love of those around us, because a doll cannot love themselves and, therefore, cannot love anyone else.

Following are Lyrics to Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”

Her green plastic watering can / For her fake Chinese rubber plant / In the fake plastic earth. / That she bought from a rubber man / In a town full of rubber plans / To get rid of itself. / It wears her out, it wears her out / It wears her out, it wears her out./

She lives with a broken man / A cracked polystyrene man / Who just crumbles and burns. / He used to do surgery / For girls in the eighties / But gravity always wins. / And it wears him out, it wears him out. / It wears him out, it wears . . ./

She looks like the real thing / She tastes like the real thing / My fake plastic love. / But I can't help the feeling / I could blow through the ceiling / If I just turn and run. / And it wears me out, it wears me out. / It wears me out, it wears me out. /

And if I could be who you wanted / If I could be who you wanted / All the time, all the time. / Oh, oh.

For Complete Lyrics Visit: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/Dollhouse.html