Celebrity. To be worshipped and adored and known by millions is what many people think they want. We want to see our names in lights and for everyone to know our name, but there is so much more to being a celebrity. To be a celebrity, yes, is to be known and globally recognized, but to be perpetually misconstrued and eviscerated by the media, the paparazzi, and even us, who don’t know them but judge based on the little that we know and have access to. Not only does celebrity come with a lack of privacy or normalcy, but also dehumanization, the inevitable moment where they are no longer a whole being but a tool with no interior life, living to serve no function and purpose except for what we know them for. Case in point, Tiger Woods was in a nearly fatal car accident this past week. The jaws of life had to be used just to get him out of his car, but all anyone seems to be concerned about is how disappointing it is that he won’t be able to play in the Masters next month and if we will ever see him on the green again. I was one of those people, honestly. As I sat with my father watching the developing news on his accident, I asked my father if he thought Tiger would ever play again and he said, “I’m much more concerned about his life,” and instantly, I regretted my question. I sounded like all the other vultures who just wanted to talk about his career, about the tournaments he will be missing, notably the Masters, and what a tragedy it is that he won’t be playing for a while when it is a miracle he is alive.
Tiger Woods has unequivocally transcended the game of golf, is the reason most of us are even interested in or know about the game of golf, and he’s probably the greatest golfer to ever play the game, but he is also a father, a son, and more importantly, a mortal man, but we’ve forgotten that. We see celebrities, but we don’t really know their lives and all they endure in this life. The truth of the matter is we only see a glimpse, just one aspect of their identity and life, but we believe we have all the facts, that we have a right to demand anything of them when we don’t. We start to see them only for the function they serve and anything past that, we simply don’t care about. Yes, he is a phenomenal golfer, but who cares that he will never play again when he nearly died? He has given everything to the game of golf, nearly lost his family in the process, and turned his life around only to be reduced to and defined by his performance as a player. Even if all he was was mediocre, if his contribution to the game was minor at best, his life would still be more important than any future he has in the game.
We hate being reduced to the work we do or even a single aspect of our entire identity, to being just this or just that, so why is it so easy for us to do it to others, to people we don’t know? In a similar fashion, just shortly after Chadwick Boseman’s death, everyone was so concerned about the future of Black Panther, of how the franchise would go on, but what does any of that matter to his grieving wife, his family, and those still trying to process his passing and fathom all he gave us while fighting cancer?
No one person is any one thing. All of us are layered, are complicated, and are far greater than any job that we perform or any talents we possess. I’m not sure when it happened, but we have stopped caring about the whole individual, about other people past the use they have to us. But in the same way that we are so much greater than our worst mistake, we are greater than our gifts, talents, and contributions. We have intrinsic worth and value simply because we were created by God. Our abilities and talents are offerings to the world, just as Tiger Woods and Chadwick Boseman’s were, but our worth comes from the love we were created in and with; our worth comes simply from the fact that we exist and that should count for something. Our very lives should matter in their entirety, not just the portions of our identity society has pigeon-holed us into believing is all we’re good for.
