Nows and Forevers

I will say I am underwhelmed by the first episodes of “Ted Lasso” this season. I have been a big fan in the past. But the Vox article about how “Ted Lasso” seems different given the public breakup of star Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde strikes me as the wrong take.

Comparing the show to the actor’s life is at best stretching it and to my mind, feels wrong. Sudeikis is an actor, doing a job and playing a role. I would say the same thing if it were written primarily about Olivia Wilde. We are all just trying to live our lives. Comparisons like this don’t help.

And this coming from someone who has gotten paid to dig up dirt for what 30 years now, has had to report without fear or favor, and whose occupational hazard is that I get lied to on a regular basis. Maybe even daily. I kept reading this and wondered why is this a story?

I am not making excuses for him but few of us live up to our potential or listen to the better angels of our nature 100% of the time. I can think of two people in my life who were close to those ideals. Both were constitutionally unable to judge anyone. They were focused on what you now would call servant leadership and radical acceptance, two things sorely missing in this world and we are poorer without them here on Earth. I know my life is poorer without them, and one in particular.

Which brings me back to this article. You could write that about a lot of people, in and out of Hollywood. But I wonder, does it matter? Does whatever happens in my private life hold any meaning over my work? And vice versa? The longer I go, the more I realize it doesn’t. There’s some I can be proud of in both, and some that I wish I could have done differently.

“Ted Lasso” is a TV show and a character. Let’s not conflate it with real life.