My Sunday evening was interrupted by Twitter:
“a beautiful speech shows great character in a man”
“Attractive, smart & so generous to his partner”
“was beautiful to acknowledge the sacrifice of others to follow your dream”
“Hey girl” has been officially replaced with “my lady”
I was hooked, and had to uncover why social media was so enamoured with the acceptance speech of Ryan Gosling at the Golden Globe awards.
“You don’t get to be up here without standing on the shoulders of a mountain of people … while I was singing and dancing and playing piano and having one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, on a film, my lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second and trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer. If she hadn’t taken all that on so that I could have this experience, it would surely be someone else up here, other than me, today, so, sweetheart, thank-you.”
sigh …
swoon …
Then I pondered, what was really so exceptional about the words of Mr. Gosling? After all, all he did was acknowledge that his success was not his alone, but thanks to the efforts and commitment of his wife, to him, his success, their children, and her brother.
Isn’t what he did, what should be expected of us all?
Perhaps, his words, his public deflection of his success being from his own merits, is exceptional because celebrities rarely stoop to such humility?
Or, perhaps, his words, deflecting his own honour, by honouring his partner in life, is exceptional because we humans, as a whole, rarely stoop to such humility?
Our world is one of individual goals, devices, efforts and successes. But our human race is created for community, mutuality, and inter-dependence. We need each other.
We need to honour each other, and our reliance on those around us, in all that we do.
This is not exceptional (or shouldn’t be), it’s expected of us all.
itsawonderfilledlife 