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The most authentic Pilgrim is the one who never stops sailing.

Kobe Bryant is a hopeless perfectionist. He should also be an honorary Puritan. When our forefathers came ashore at Plymouth Rock, they sowed the seeds of history’s mightiest civilization—which would have been better news if they’d taught their children how to drop anchor and savor the harvest.

Satisfaction means relishing the new ring on your finger.

Success, on the other hand, means reaching for the next rung on the ladder.

I’m not suggesting that Bryant has anything left to prove. His résumé speaks for itself, and his passion for the game is beyond question. But it’s precisely that passion which prevents him from basking in his own glory. In a league where complacency so often breeds mediocrity, the best players are those who refuse to settle for mere excellence.

You can’t always get what you really want.

You can’t ever find what you really seek.

If there’s a lesson in Kobe’s questing, it’s simply that the pursuit of happiness is an endless trip.

NBA legends aren’t conditioned for contentment. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird—they were pathological champions, competitors whose most lasting peace came in the conflict of competition. The implication, of course, is that restive longing can be its own reward. Critics of American culture will argue that Bryant’s inherited inquietude is symptomatic of a national disease. I’d counter that national dis-ease is the single most important source of this country’s resilient health.

It’s good to count your blessings.

It’s better to lick your chops.

Kobe may go to bed hungry on this and every other Thanksgiving, but at least his ravenous dreams will always whet his appetite.

Satiation is the enemy of human progress. Food in the stomach inclines a man to old habits; fire in the belly drives him on to New Worlds. I’m thankful for Kobe Bryant because he’s as American as ambition and apple pie, and because we all ought to be more appreciative of those cravings that won’t stay quenched. Every pilgrimage is born with a prayer for blissful days in the future. The one that’s still vital after almost four centuries owes its endurance to the curse of restless nights in the present.

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Scott Fitzgerald never sat courtside at Staples Center, but he did know a thing or two about the plight of chronic yearners:

Kobe believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—

Which has been the wind in the sails of every American ship since the Mayflower.

Because the Home of the Brave will forever be a bit further upstream, and anyone who argues for yielding to the current is either OD'd on tryptophan or only just saying, is all...

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