Metta Health Advocacy: Advocating for Metta World Peace
I could listen to Jackie MacMullan talk about basketball for days. She does for my ears what I wish hammocks would do for the rest of my body. The combination of her and Zach Lowe on the Lowe Post is one of the few bits of basketball media that I will interrupt the rest of my life to experience.
It’s a perfect combination. Zach Lowe knows basketball on a level that’s probably a couple levels above where I think the top level is, and all he wants to do is hear MacMullan talk. He asks questions that I want to know the answers to, and does it with a level of wonder and joy that I only really ever apply to glitched Ocarina of Time speedruns.
Jackie MacMullan does Jackie MacMullan things. Those things to her probably seem like normal everyday life stuff. Those things to me seem like a series of checkmarks on a job application for the position of “God.”
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They did another podcast this week. I was disappointed to find it wasn’t six hours long, but you take what you can get when what you get is awesome. They devoted a great deal of time to two topics of great importance to me.
The first was mental health. DeMar DeRozan, Kevin Love, and Chris Bosh deserve every inch and crumb and quark of credit for what they’ve said in the last few weeks. They’ve been honest about the thing that might be the most difficult to be honest about: themselves.
Mental health is a Mandlebrot Fractal combined with a Shepard Tone. If you’re fortunate enough to recognize there’s a problem going on in your brain, that brain is the only thing you have to try and work that problem out. “My wrench isn’t working right. The only tool I have to fix anything is that wrench.”
Other people can offer advice from the outside. Or maybe some people can only offer encouragement. Other people might avoid the wrench issue entirely. That isn’t necessarily out of convenience, it could be that they just don’t want to give bad wrench advice.
Some people are professional wrench fixing advisors, and they’ve dedicated their careers to be able to help you with your wrench. Other people are those who have addressed their wrenches in the past. They can give an empathy for your wrench situation that you may not be able to find elsewhere.
It’s unclear to me exactly how, but at some point in the process you become superhuman. You bend that wrench around on itself, you make a change that seems impossible, and you pull that wrench back into ‘normal’ wrench shape. You’re better than before. You’re better than you know.
That process doesn’t start until you see there’s a way to start it. DeRozan, Love, and Bosh might be that inspiration for someone. They might be it for many, many someones. That’d be fantastic but even a single person is a triumph. That’s one more person in the world with perspective and perseverance and a belief in themself.
But those three weren’t the first inspiration-y thing. That was Metta World Peace. Somehow, everything in my life comes back to Metta World Peace. He’s the second topic of great personal importance. You see, the heart and mind have to work together.
Jackie MacMullan talked about his acceptance speech upon winning the NBA Championship where he thanked his therapist. I was curious to see it for myself, so I found it.
Here it is transcribed:
"Well, first off I want to thank everybody in my hood. Thank the [unsure] my wife Kimsha, my family, my kids, everybody.I definitely want to thank my doctor, Dr. Sandy. My, um, my psychiatrist, she really helped me relax a lot, thank you so much. It’s so difficult to play with all this- when there’s so much emotion going on in the playoffs. And she helped me relax. I thank you so much. I knocked down that three. Just like you told me. Thank you.And my single coming out! [No talk to me I got a single it’s called “Champion.” I got a song called “Champion!” Last June! [unsure] And the single is coming out! [to Doris Burke] I’m sorry. Thank you so much."
Metta World Peace, at that time Ron Artest, had about 30 seconds of time on a live mic on national television, and he spent the majority of it thanking his psychiatrist. He pushed through Doris Burke’s questions to say exactly what he wanted to say, with emotion and honesty. It was not an accident; it wasn’t something that slipped out. This was a statement with intention and genuine care.
There was a problem, however, and MacMullan spoke to this on the Lowe Post. World Peace is regarded as “the kooky uncle,” and that’s the impression if he’s regarded in a positive light. For others he’s just a villain. He’s the dude who ran into the stands to attack someone, or tore apart a formidable Pacers team, or made Stephen Jackson lose $3 million somewhat indirectly. Some people have a lot of passion about Stephen Jackson’s money, especially Stephen Jackson.
This is perception, a model, a connect-the-dots portrait of a person with a bunch of dots missing except for a few of the most zany ones. That’s the object people react to, and people love reacting.
What you get then is not a discussion of the person or the person’s cause. You either get a reaction to the public image “So Ron Artest is what happens when you’re seeing a therapist?” Or a discussion that avoids the person entirely to talk about a related issue in a tangential way. “How can psychology make you better at sports?’ instead of “Even people who excel at sports can need psychologists.” That’s not harmful, but it’s not especially relatable.
Neither of these approaches pushed the conversation to where it is now. It just wasn’t the right combination of personality and cultural push to do so. DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love and Chris Bosh maybe do have the intended sort of character to get it there.
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But World Peace deserves his credit. The conversation was started even if no one was actively listening just yet. He was and is a unique human being. After all, how many people would have reached out to the fan that threw the soda to spark the publicly televised moment in recent NBA history? How many would apply for a job at Circuit City to get an employee discount while still being employed by the Chicago Bulls? Or How many people would add panda heads to their shoes to brand a lifestyle of positivity and relaxation? Hell, how many people would change their name Metta World Peace?
I’d go with “one,” but I might be biased.