(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Enough is never enough.
Kobe Bryant has everything a guy could ask for. He also lacks the one thing he really wants. After a triumphant march through the NBA Finals, Bryant is still hunting for the final piece of the puzzle—which wouldn’t be such bad news if he had any hope of ever actually finding it.
Desire means chasing your dreams.
Need, on the other hand, means fleeing your nightmares.
It’s not that Kobe is alone in his longing. Every pilgrim is haunted by visions of the Promised Land, and the only goals worth having are the ones you never quite reach. But the all-time greats are prone to a special kind of desperation. In a league where success so often sires complacency, the best players are always those who never get comfortable with the status quo.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Unrested beats the heart that seeks a throne.
If Kobe’s serious about ruling the NBA, he can’t afford to grant himself a decent night’s sleep.
Sports stardom isn’t a satisfying experience. Passion, commitment, focus—these are symptoms of distress, of abiding displeasure with ordinary accomplishment. The problem, alas, is that pathological determination can’t simply be turned off. Buddhists will argue that Kobe should transcend the illusory lusts of temporal existence. I’d counter that even Phil Jackson Himself couldn’t meditate his way to early retirement.
Enlightenment is good.
Evolution is better.
Kobe’s a proven winner, but proven winners aren’t bred to settle for anything less than one more victory.
Natural selection favors neurotic organisms. It’s healthy to obsess about survival; it’s dangerous to relax before you’re dead. The next step for Kobe Bryant will be the same as the one before it, and the one before that, and so on and so on back to the birth of the species. Undying hunger drove man to the top of the food chain. What that means for his pursuit of satiation is a question dope fiends and Darwin fans will have to answer on their own.
Bob Dylan never won an NBA title, but he does a know a thing or two about grandiose ambitions:
Someday, everything is gonna be diff'rent
When I paint my masterpiece.
Which is every high achiever's personal pipe dream.
Because contentment is the mortal enemy of excellence, and any virtuoso who claims to be happy with his work is either coming off a champagne buzz or only just saying, is all...
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