Ruthlessness

Who is Tiger Woods, really? We think we know. Tiger himself seemed to know too.

He’s the best golf player in the history of the game, a legend in his own time. He has dominated in the sport, leaving any competition so far behind him, making him one of the wealthiest people in the world. He found love with a wife and had children. He seemed to be living the dream and inspiring others along the way. So, how is it possible that he might not have been completely self-actualized? He seemed to be living the life he was born to live.

No one can know better than oneself whom the he was born to be. And one can be most knowledgeable in this than in any other subject under the sun. It is in merely the pursuit this knowledge that one can come to know satisfaction.

The recent event of his car crash and revelations of his infidelity to his family has clued us in to the possibility that Tiger is not satisfied. In what is becoming increasingly revealed as insatiable extra-marital activity Tiger seemed to attempt to fill an emptiness that was, in some subtle and persistent way, gnawing at, or even tormenting, him. This is what any of us would do, whether we choose drugs, sex, success, money or material goods for 'filler'. We would desperately attempt to fill the void with these things in the hope that it will anaesthetize the pain of loneliness, of loss. It's when we've giving up on ever finding ourselves that we will recklessly lose ourselves in something else. As regular, anonymous, non-billionaire folk, we could be appalled that he should take his successes for granted. That he'd be willing to gamble all of his 'earnings' so haphazardly and on petty whims. Geez, we think, couldn't he have tried a little harder to control himself?

Tiger's infidelity was an act of loathing: his ruthlessness, an expression of loathing for his lack of self-satisfaction. When we are ruthless, we are unreasonably judging, unforgiving, and critical of ourselves, first. On others, second. Ruthlessness is blind, powerful, indiscriminating. Although the loathing is directed at the self by the self, others (from family to fans) are unavoidably offended by virtue of their feeling of connection to him. Tiger's infidelity is literally a lack-of-faith, a lack of faith in the love he has with his wife. However, his lack of faith in his marriage is yet an extension of a deep-seeded lack of faith in himself. The self, as he has come to know it, has let him down. It has failed to bring him ultimate satisfaction. He may not be able to explain exactly why golf stardom hasn't done it for him, and certainly, we would be even less capable of doing so. Tiger sought these extra-marital women because he felt lonely, sure... lonely for himself.

It's impossible for talented people to be talented in only one thing. (I think Marguerite Duras once said something to that effect.) Therefore it’s possible for them to excel in any number of things and reap the rewards. But among those things, which is it that makes the person most satisfied? What gives him the greatest feelings of self-satisfaction? What is that thing that stirs his soul, makes him feel most alive? As humans, the ability to ask ourselves these questions is our divine right... to freedom. Tiger never had the chance to ask himself these questions: we cannot be satisfied if we are not free.