RSS
Home
Tiger Woods: a human being in golfer's clothing
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
For a third time in as many days, Tiger Woods once again refused an interview with police investigating his mysterious early morning car crash. Woods is famous not only for his golf game but also his ability to protect his private life from unwanted publicity. It turns out that any speculation about his private life—positive or negative, is unwanted.
Following his latest snub of investigating officers he issued a statement. “This situation is my fault, and it's obviously embarrassing to my family and me," he said. "I'm human and I'm not perfect. I will certainly make sure this doesn't happen again."
As the story broke open over the Thanksgiving holiday early reports indicated he was pulling out of his driveway at 2:25 AM when he somehow ran into a fire hydrant and careened into a neighbors tree. Hearing the crash, his wife Elin Nordegren, unable to open the locked car doors, retrieved a golf club, smashed a window and freed her husband who floated in and out of consciousness.
As Tiger Woods remains hidden away from the police officers and the public eye, rumors run rampant.
What is he hiding? Why is he embarrassed? Suddenly, the Tiger Woods story races to the top of the charts as the most important story in the news.
Check it out. Practically every news web site ranks the Woods car crash as the most viewed story.
Why are we so taken with celebrities? This is the most important story in the world?
Suddenly, the parade of pain in Pakistan, the suffering and calamity in Afghanistan, the nuclear madness of Iran and the partisan rancor around health care reform, fade to footnote.
The media reflects back to us the way we see ourselves--or how we want to see ourselves. Little seems to grab our collective attention like the cult of celebrity. Perhaps we are so easily seduced because celebrities remind us of our own need to feel important. When a celebrity is shamed, we react with pity or arrogance. Either way, celebrities become the screen onto which we project our fears, hopes and longings.
Whenever I attend a fund raising event, I marvel at how often people scurry to have their picture taken with the celebrity-in-attendance. We feel important when we are seen and photographed with a celebrity. Subconsciously, we hope that a brush with celebrity will rub off on us and perhaps make us famous.
These experiences remind me of a deep truth. We all want to be seen, recognized and visible to others, We all want to feel important. But there is a deeper need than that of being or identifying with a celebrity. We confuse being famous with being great—but they are not the same.
Martin Luther King Jr. put it well:
“If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. But recognize that whoever is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s your new definition of greatness…because everybody can serve.”
By this definition the truly great among us are those who never grab the headlines or make the news. The truly great are anonymous masses in Iran who have risked their lives for freedom—or the everyday volunteers in homeless shelters—or the loving members of a family who sit tirelessly beside the bed of a dying loved one—or who?
It's one thing to be famous. It's another thing altogether to be great.
In the meantime, we as a people become fixated on the latest celebrity calamity.
Tiger Woods is undeniably the greatest golfer of all time. But there is more to life than a polo shirt and a 9 iron. There is more to life than being famous. Beneath the surface of this celebrity and every other, there lurks a precarious yet promising human being.
The timing of Tiger Woods unfortunate accident comes at a bad time for him. Next week he is scheduled to host and play at a golf tournament to benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation. His charitable foundation is a sign that some part of Tiger Woods recognizes there is a difference between being famous and being great.
OK. Let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume that when the dust settles—when truth is told about Tiger hitting the fire hydrant and the tree this will prove once again that every celebrity is nothing more than an imperfect and fragile human being in famous clothing.
After all, we are all human beings here.
So, let’s read the Tiger Woods story—and every celebrity catastrophe, through the eyes of Mahatma Gandhi, “ As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world…as in being able to remake ourselves.”
In every tiger in the woods there is a wimp and a worm, but also a wonder to behold.
Related Articles:
Comments
