The Prison of Fame Revisited

Another lesson on the toxicity of fame and wealth is appearing on the front pages as I write here, this time involving the world’s greatest golfer, and perhaps, athlete. Sport at its best contains beautiful lessons for the young — lessons in teamwork, self-awareness, and above all, patience. The baseball season stretches from February into November and comprises over 180 games, if you count the pre-season. Other sports emphasize clock management, restraint, and balance over a long game or season. But even these do not test the fundamental elements of maturity quite like golf.

Unfortunately, in our culture, parents and coaches teach winning over maturity and its foundational elements. They tend to overlook the fact that the ingredients of success in sports are not merely lessons for winning, but lessons for life. This distortion in emphasis is what makes all the difference to the developing young mind. Thus, when the grail of victory, fame, and wealth is delivered to the modern athlete’s table, he lacks the ability to digest it and either collapses into a pit of mediocrity (the so-called sophomore jinx is an example of this) or is driven to flights of excess — drugs, crime, violence, sexual adventures, or other indulgences that drag him toward failure.

A third possibility appears to apply to Mr. Woods’ case: that the athlete becomes trapped in the golden cage of expectation and appearance-obsession. Tiger Woods is the ultimate prisoner of the corporate system that enriched him; what I would like to argue here is that he didn’t need to make that choice, to accept that sentence within the bulwarked manor.

What exactly transpired between Tiger and his starlet wife is not an issue here. I only wish for them both the ability to perceive the life teaching contained in their misfortune. What interested me in the news accounts were the pictures of his residence: a walled-in, fortified (they call it “gated”), medieval castle that looked for all the world more like a high-end prison than a “community.” Most of us would go mad amid such a brutish and barricaded isolation.

Yet this is what we all too often reach for when we have been taught as children how to win, but not how to live. We choose prison because the prison has already been planted within us. The trappings of victory become the trap to the true self, and the ideas and beliefs that formed us — that only the external has substance, and that the manor must be our goal and endpoint — they merely consummate the inner prison with a castle of captivity.

Perhaps the next question should be: who indeed has avoided such a trap and dealt maturely with the allure of his culture? I have previously mentioned a few modern figures who have handled the crush and threat of wealth and fame with some semblance of presence — the authors Stephen King and J.K. Rowling come to mind.

Looking backward a ways, I also think of the case of Henry David Thoreau. According to contemporary accounts, even while he was in his retreat at Walden Pond, writing what was to become his masterpiece and his legacy, he was also taking little breaks to visit the manor. He would spend a weekend or so in Boston or at some estate to indulge himself socially, physically, and even sexually; then he would return to his home amid Nature.

Revelations such as these often make fans and idealizers of Thoreau uncomfortable; I say they merely reflect the strength that was within him. He made himself a visitor to the manor, not its prisoner. He enjoyed its pleasures and offered it his wisdom; and never allowed himself to become absorbed into its fortifications of delusion. He never forgot where his true home lay, and what nourished his true being above all externalities.

His example is there for anyone who wishes to access it or to teach it. In fact, if I were the coach of a football, baseball, or golf team in academia at any level, I just might make Walden required reading for my charges. It would reinforce and support all the positive and developmental lessons of sports: collegiality, self-examination, and above all, patience with oneself and with circumstance. It would also show them that when life hands you victory, take the money gratefully and then walk quickly away from the trophy, the acclaim, and the gleaming prison of fame.