The end of a year. And I want to see the end of a misguided turn of mind in Barbados.
For nearly 25 years a man has held on to a world championship in a brain sport in which yuh have to go mano-a-mano in real competition – actually beating opponents in skill and nerve and mental alertness. With no help from popularity, personal taste or even the “judgement” of others.
Some people recognize that kind of thing as a superior achievement.
Samuel L. Jackson – one of the highest grossing actors of all time and reportedly a more than so-so golfer – apparently thinks so.
When asked which he would prefer to win – an Academy Award or a Masters, one of golf’s four annual majors – Jackson said something along these lines: “A Masters. To win an Academy Award you have to hope that certain people like you, but to win a Masters requires your actual skill in beating a set of opponents in competition.”
Sour grapes
Whether you think that somewhere in there are Jackson’s sour grapes at not ever getting his hands on an Oscar, you have to admit that all accomplishments are not equal.
But topping the world in a brain thing has gained Suki King little more than frequent disapprovals here (with no lament). Maybe he needs to be on a stage or in an arena somewhere.
Seriously, though, in terms of acclaim or respect for achievement, most people nowadays are more taken with sportsmen and entertainers than with those who invent, who change the world, who actually mould others, who bring people into critical knowing. It seems that we have been blinded by the lights.
This is not to downplay the absolutely remarkable music accomplishments of, say, Rihanna. I am simply trying to get deserved credit for outstanding people who are frequently treated like Average Joes just because their transcendent deeds are not done under the lights or because the world’s Press is not falling all over them.
This strange world hasn’t always been careful not to let Frank (Sinatra) overshadow Franklin (the inventor) or not to let George Clooney he held higher than George Washington Carver. Or Charles Barkley be thought more highly of than Charles Drew (we call the former Sir Charles but you got to run to Google to find out about Drew, whose work probably kept you or a relative alive).
This is a world in which Ludacris looms larger than Latimer (Lewis Howard).
And we do not extol enough the special greatness of those whose contribution is not an adjunct of their own personal pursuit, but the product of deliberate sacrifice – often with no lights, no applause.
I knew a man, right here in Barbados, who was the secretary of a sports organization. About 30 years ago, the financial statement presented at the annual general meeting of that association revealed a figure that represented the entity’s debt to that man, a man of ordinary offstage, off-arena workaday earning. The amount I saw strained credulity, nearly mekking my eyes pop out of my head.
Thing is, as we moaned about the unlikelihood of our ever being able to repay him, he simply said: “Don’t worry about it.” Sacrifice because of commitment to others.
No lights.
A virtual unknown beyond the circle of that sport but one of those self-denying facilitators who generate the light that reveals “performers” who, the nation must be reminded, do not have talent-nurturing umbilical cords that lead from themselves to themselves.
It is entirely possible, too, that we can benefit more deeply and consequentially from recognizing the greatness in the triumphing spirit that marks the achievements of certain members of the differently abled community who strive and strain and grittily overleap obstacle after obstacle to reach summits the able can scarcely imagine.
Got the lights
So we have to be careful about super-elevating those who in their essentially personal endeavours got the lights, and undervaluing others whose transmundane and other-centred contributions garnered no lights.
But, if that isn’t bad enough, we seek to hold – and immunize – the former within a paling of special grace: no bad-talking allowed.
We should direct our minds to the best ways of honouring achievers for their contributions. Telling the inspiring episodes of their lives so that fellow citizens can vicariously enter in and dream and rehearse to do likewise or better. Identifying the qualities that have contributed to the success of these achievers and infusing Barbadians with them. Providing the opportunities that will tend others towards such flourishing.
And showing recognition for greatness outside of the glare of stage or arena lights.
That is what we should be doing instead of trying to assail every soul who has time for idle or even perverse talk about Rihanna, or who has different values and cares to voice them or who expresses the wish that she was different.
The big-minded should exercise themselves in more potent matters, but we have barely scratched the surface. The lights, the lights.
