Stardom and failure. They seem to go hand in hand. Not always, but all too often.
Today I became sad when I read about one of the young superstars of the NBA, without a college education, at the top of his game, building a 34,000 square foot house. The master bedroom is over 2,000 square feet. His main goal in life is to be the first billionaire athlete.
I may be way off base, but this sounds to me like a classic example in the making of stardom and failure. He hasn’t failed yet. He still is basking in the glow of being a star. But some day that glow will fade, and then what?
And who is he trying to impress? It sounds like he has lost the sense of who he is. Where is the source of being? Where is the connectedness to other human beings? It sounds like he is doing everything to separate himself from the rest of humanity. It sounds like the ego has taken over his life. Will he get beyond it? Maybe. Maybe not.
This is the stuff that tragedy is made from. Shakespeare would already have it written. The stardom is easy to see. The failure though is more subtle. This failure can be as undetectable as cancer but just as deadly.
It doesn’t have to be that stardom in a career is a setup for personal failure. But all too often that is the case. It happens when stars forget that they are human beings. When they forget how to feel and relate to other people, they become lost.
They become trapped in the outer world. The inner life might as well be life on Mars. It becomes out of reach.
This leads to the question, “What is success?” Was Judy Garland a success? Janis Joplin? John Belushi? Keith Moon? When success leads to a life of excess, reckless abandon, and ultimately death, then it is nothing but unmitigated failure.
True success enhances life. It doesn’t lead a person down a blind alley of despair. It enhances a person’s humanity. It expands the heart. It enriches the soul.
The success that we read about in the news too often brings with it a spiritual collapse. That’s understandable. The excitement of rising to stardom makes it impossible to have tranquility. The claims of the ego trump the claims of the heart.
But without the heart we are nothing. Without joy there are no inner riches to bask in. No peace, no serenity, no poise, no understanding what life is all about. Without the heart, there is only clinging to an illusion of separateness. And that clinging equates to suffering.
When all the accolades have come and gone and the stimulation of super-stardom starts to wear thin, what’s left is despair. The desperation all too often leads to addictions.
That’s why you read about so many stars succumbing to drugs, alcohol, depression, and in some cases, suicide. The accolades become an addiction and when they stop the illusion comes to an end.
Fame in itself isn’t bad. Money in itself isn’t bad. But when they feed the ego at the expense of the heart, a distorted sense of perception develops. The purpose of life becomes lost. The ego aligns with the weak attractor energy patterns. (See my article on attractor energy patterns.)
The famous and wealthy stars who align with the higher attractor energy fields will use their success to enhance life. There is a balance between the inner and the outer. The heart isn’t clouded. Joy isn’t replaced by excitement. A good day isn’t necessitated by good headlines.
To be successful in the truest sense of the word is to know that success is not a matter of what one has, or what other people see, but what one is.
To be a true star is to have the light shine from within. When you are the source of light, it never fades. You are not at the whim of a fickle public. Your fulfillment comes not from what people think of you, or say about you, or write about you. It comes from an inner knowing. The duality of stardom and failure is over.
Such a life never knows darkness. That is stardom.
