Tiger, Tiger Still In The Woods

“What it takes to be a Tiger.… see­ing things sim­ply, see­ing things fully.”

Watch­ing Tiger Woods’ pub­lic apol­ogy today was painful.  Like the ad says, too bad he lost his abil­ity to see.

I got the feel­ing he felt like a school­boy who’d been marched to the principal’s office and forced to write “I was wrong and irre­spon­si­ble” 100 times on the chalk­board before sub­mit­ting to a pad­dling at the hands of the three school­marms seated in the front row.

How would you like to con­jure up the dark­est, most despi­ca­ble things you’ve ever done and con­fess to them on national TV with your mother sit­ting right in front of you?  Come on now!  Don’t you think you might look as bewitched, both­ered and bewil­dered as Tiger did?

Many things  struck me watch­ing Tiger squirm through his press con­fer­ence .  I thought of the myth of Icarus and his father, Daedalus, impris­oned on the Isle of Crete.  Daedalus fash­ioned wings out of feath­ers and wax for the two of them so they could fly away to safety, but he warned Icarus not to fly to low to the sea lest the water get his wings wet or too close to the sun lest its heat melt the wax.

Icarus, being the Puer type that he was,was over­come with the thrill of fly­ing.  He kept fly­ing higher and higher until he flew very close to the sun.   The heat of the sun melted the wax and all the feath­ers were lost.  Icarus  plunged to the sea and was killed.

Like Icarus, Tiger, intox­i­cated with fame and for­tune, thought the rules didn’t apply to him.  He felt he could fly as high as he wanted and that some­how the sun’s heat would make an excep­tion.  He thought he could betray his core val­ues, leave behind the spir­i­tual path he’d fol­lowed since birth and “fol­low every temp­ta­tion” with impunity.

It’s like that when we think we’re enti­tled. The essence of the word, “en-titled” infers that we con­vey a title to our­selves to do what­ever we want regard­less of the impact on oth­ers.  In fact, think­ing of oth­ers is the far­thest thing from our minds when we’re caught in the trap of entitlement.

All of us have been there.  I do not throw stones.  I count my own chap­ters of enti­tle­ment to be among my least best moments.  The fall always comes.  We can look across the land­scape of con­tem­po­rary life and see a bat­tle­field strewn with the bod­ies of the for­merly enti­tled and the unfor­tu­nate peo­ple they took with them.

Pro­fes­sional ath­letes seem to have more than their share of rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but they prob­a­bly don’t out­num­ber politi­cians, tel-evangelists, Hol­ly­wood celebri­ties, cor­po­rate exec­u­tives and our favorites; finan­cial advis­ers (can you say Bernie Madoff?)

In some cases, the fall is merely pub­lic humil­i­a­tion.  The enti­tled  take their humil­i­a­tion in stride and use it to keep on going.  Larry Craig still holds his seat in Con­gress.  Kobe Bryant still leads the Los Angles Lak­ers.  Mark San­ford is still the gov­er­nor of South Car­olina. Today, a “fallen” celebrity or offi­cial can quit their job, write a book,  go on tour, become a pun­dit on Fox News and make mil­lions of dol­lars.  Some even con­sider run­ning for president.

But for oth­ers among the ranks of the enti­tled the price is much higher.  John Edwards has ruined his career as a politi­cian and it looks like his 33 year mar­riage to Eliz­a­beth is com­ing to an end as well.   Edwards’ arro­gance and enti­tle­ment may just end up win­ning a Pulitzer Prize for that icon of supe­rior jour­nal­ism , The National Inquirer.   How’s that for irony?

Arro­gance and enti­tle­ment, while pro­duc­ing tem­po­rary grat­i­fi­ca­tion, ulti­mately will serve to undo.   Call it what you will; karma, the law of cause and effect, one way or another, sooner or later, the guard at the gate will exact its toll and the piper will demand pay­ment.   The scales will be balanced.

I believe in sec­ond chances, even third and fourth ones.  Tiger is right, he does have work to do.  I wish him well.  May his Bud­dhist faith serve to put him on his right­eous path.  May he learn the lessons of humil­ity, integrity, and respon­si­bil­ity and earn back his own self respect and self trust,  and hope­fully that of his loved ones.   May he look back on this expe­ri­ence and say this is where he truly became a man of honor.

Tagged as: arrogance, Bernie Madoff, Congress, Culture, Daedalus, Entertainment/Culture, entitlement, fallen official, Feather, financial advisors, Governor, Greek mythology, Human Interest, Icarus, Icarus imagery in contemporary popular music, Isle of Crete, John Edwards, Kobe Bryant, Larry Craig, Law/Crime, Mark Sanford, nature, official, politician, scandal, South Carolina, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods sex scandal