Thank You Kobe
There isn’t much that I might say, that hasn’t already been said in the last 48 hours about Kobe Bryant. As a public figure, his life inspired so many…and his death, unfortunately, has touched even more with a great sense of loss.
People who aren’t necessarily his fans, or even basketball fans, have been deeply moved by his passing…and the passing of his 13 year old daughter Gigi.
As I reflect on what this means to me…this thought came to mind.
What is it about the death of someone famous, that evokes such an outpouring of emotion, from such a broad swath of humanity?
Please understand, this is not to take away from the empathy that we should all show to his family, and the families of the others on board the helicopter that crashed. And this is not to say that I haven’t been moved by these events myself.
Further, just to make sure that you don’t turn away from this article, thinking I’m a cold-hearted analytical bastard, I invite you to read this article I wrote about the passing of Chris Cornell.
I’m just interested in what appears (at least to me) to be a disproportionate emotional response to someone that existed in the public consciousness. Someone that few people personally knew, but that millions (perhaps billions) felt that they “knew”.
I suppose the answer lies somewhere within the realm of how we all see ourselves.
It seems to me, that even though most of us didn’t personally know Kobe in any meaningful way, we can all relate to what we believe that he stood for. By all accounts, he was a person who was absolutely uncompromising in the pursuit of his own potential, and in the pursuit of greatness itself…on and off the basketball court.
It seems to me that all of us, at one time or another, have aspired to be a person like that. But life gets in the way, doesn’t it?
And when it does, we sometimes turn to people like Kobe, to be that uncompromising hero for us…to see a bit more of our own potential, through his story and his actions.
So thank you Kobe.
Thank you for serving as an example of what we are all capable of. The uncompromising pursuit of our best selves.
