My tepid attempt at inspiration: While researching this morning, desperately wanting to finish my paper (on my birthday no less!), came across this excerpt and thought I would share it.

Our own age, in contrast, is fascinated by exposure. Indeed, the act of exposure itself now seems to excite us more than the content of the secrets exposed. The steady stripping away of layers of social behavior has made the “scandal” and the revelation of the “deep dark secret” everyday occurrences. Ironically, what is pulled out of the closets that contain seemingly extraordinary secrets is, ultimately, the “ordinariness” of everyone. The unusual becomes the usual. … Still we hunger for heroes, and perhaps our search beneath social masks is filled with the hope of finding people whose private selves are as admirable as their public ones. But since most of the people who make enduring contributions to our culture remain under our scrutiny too long to remain pure in our eyes, we have also begun to focus on people who make one grand gesture or who complete a single courageous act that cannot be undermined by scrutiny (Meyrowitz 311).