When Emotions Collide :: Reflections on the Life & Death of Kobe Bryant

When emotions collide.

It’s ok to feel sad about the death of someone you didn’t know.

The death of anyone reminds us how interconnected we are as humans.

It touches the place inside of us that, no matter how much we may try to distract ourselves from it, knows we’re all mortals, and that this life is fleeting.

It’s also ok to feel conflicted about the death of someone, who performed some incredible, life-changing feats, on and off the court, and who also did some terrible things.

As humans, our brains are efficient, and they naturally want to sort both situations and people - good or bad, safe or not safe, for or against, right or wrong etc...

But here’s the thing, humans are complex, nuanced creatures. No person living on this earth is all good or entirely bad. And no one act or series of acts defines a person as a whole.

So, it’s ok to feel inspired by someone who was a phenomenal athlete.

It’s ok to feel sad that he’s gone.

It’s ok to feel upset that nine people died and really only two are being mourned by the general public.

It’s ok to feel heartbroken for his family AND for his alleged victim, whose life will also never be the same.

It’s ok to feel raging mad about certain things he did and said, and that he very possibly raped a woman.

It’s ok to feel angry that he and his daughter and seven other lives were lost.

That is actually an amazing aspect of how we’re created as humans - we have the capacity to hold all of it.

We can feel mad and inspired and sad and shaken all at the same time. We can.

We may not want to, because it’s far easier to assign people to one category or another. But we miss out on a whole lot of richness and beauty when we do.

And I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t want people trying to decide which of the two categories I fall into.

Would you?