Your first sentance "emapthy is the toughest emotion" is technically wrong. Empathy is NOT an emotion. It is the understanding of another's feelings or state...empathy is the ability to understand another person. Sympathy is the emotion one typically associates with that understanding.
When I heard about Osaka, I immediately thought of Greinke who we now have on the Astros. He's a brilliant pitcher and great player, and is that not enough entertainment? I always feel bad for him when they forcibly stick mics in front of him, and I love seeing him answer with single words and then walk off. I find it completely disingenuous for all the media out there to be rushing to throw the tennis organizers under the bus. Yeah, Roland-Garros and friends were undeniably terrible. The same media that are rushing to Osaka's camp are the people that were shoving mics in front of her, asking the same stupid questions, treating her like a puppet that's supposed to dance to their prickly questions about her play, and so on. She didn't call out the organizers; she called out the media. They're entitled scum who still don't have a clue about mental health, which is ironic yet appropriate since most of them are narcissists. Osaka and Greinke attract their attention and salaries by being phenomenal at their sport. No one cares about a bad player that's a media darling. The quality of questions by the media is rock bottom in every sport. Why should anybody have to put up with that? It's disrespectful. I'm sure Osaka and Greinke might be a little more amenable to engaging with interviewers that intend to respect them and make it interesting and worth their while to answer questions. You won't find any of that in the national and international sports media. You can find it at the local level. You can find it from fansites. You can find it on Youtube. There are people in all those place that can respectfully interview celebrities, sports or otherwise. The capital-M Media, though, are just a pain-in-the-ass that want you to slip up in your press conference, so they push a dramatic narrative instead of having to come up with any real content. I don't blame the athletes for deriding them, and I hope many more start to do it.
Beautiful stuff and great analogy to Greinke, whose career has always been a bit beyond my orbit. The greatest lefthanded pitcher of my phavorite phranchise refused to talk to the media for most of his career, for whatever reasons. He still managed to give us more than we had any right to expect.
Great article, Joe. As a long-time Royals fan. I too first thought of Zack Greinke when this issue with Osaka blew up. Let's hope she gets the time and help she needs to be able to deal with her issues and the social pressures that come with being a world-class athlete in any sport - and let's also hope and pray that her story has a happy ending like Zack's. As always, you hit the nail on the head.
Love it as always Joe. This is just another example that indicates empathy appears to be in short supply these days. Made me wonder a few things:
1) Can empathy be taught? Are people generally less empathetic than we used to be, whether via our inherent nature or via external conditioning (looking at you Facebook)?
3) Do any 23-year olds have the poise, self- and worldly-awareness to avoid the communication gaffes that Osaka made? I know that at 23, I was a disaster of a human being...
I agree with you, Joe, and the other responders here that I hope Naomi finds and gets the help that she needs. Tennis is certainly better when she is out there doing amazing things on the court.
I do wish she had done a much better job at communicating this though, which is where I think a lot of the criticism is coming from. The way it happened, it looked like she was trying to have her cake and eat it, too: "I want to do these parts of the job that I enjoy, but I don't want to do these parts I don't enjoy." And doing so publicly and not trying to talk in private initially with the French Open Powers That Be then could make it look like she wanted to be treated differently and special from all the other players. I think the French could have probably done more than shrug and say, "Well, our hands are tied there's nothing we can do but penalize." I like to think that everyone involved is a reasonable person and some sort of compromise could have been reached to allow Naomi to still play and have some sort of modified press talk (do it virtually? have questions submitted by the press and have Naomi read those and then answer? I don't know).
I agree that her first statement didn't do a good job of getting her message across, but I think there's a good reason for that: talking about depression is hard. Like, it's really really hard. Unless you've lived with it, you likely don't appreciate how hard it is.
One reason it's hard is that depression doesn't make sense. You can be young, healthy, rich, famous, and incredibly successful, and still be depressed. It's not rational. A lot of living with depression is feeling bad *about being depressed* because you feel like you shouldn't be. When I was a kid, my dad (who meant well, and really tried his best to help) used to try to cheer me up by listing reasons why my life situation was good (a pretty solid list, I had to admit- in other respects I was a fortunate kid) and then conclude "you've got the world by the balls!" It didn't help, and the worst part is I didn't even understand why, because it seemed like it *should* help.
How do you explain something to others when you can't even explain it to yourself?
Another reason depression's hard to talk about is, for the most part, people don't want to hear about it. Sure, people are quick to say "it's a medical condition, not a character flaw" and other supportive things, but that doesn't change the fact that depression's a bummer. A weirdly intimate bummer. The number of people who are comfortable hearing about it will always be fairly small. When coworkers or casual friends say "how're you doing?" you're supposed to say "I'm good," even when that's a lie. And the experience of doing that over and over, almost every day, conditions you to treat depression like a secret, even if you don't really believe that. So when you need to set limits, you don't say "I need this for my mental health"- either you dance around the issue, or you make up a polite excuse.
I think a big part of having empathy for people with depression is realizing that they will generally do a bad job of making depression comprehensible, because that is an impossible task to begin with and our social expectations don't make it any easier.
I've been thinking about this a lot, and my initial reaction--to her initial statement--was, I'll admit, not fully empathetic, I think because of the way she worded it. And I wonder if that's why she got more negative response than she deserved for this.
In that pre-Roland Garros statement, she said, "I’ve often felt that people have no regard for [athletes’] mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one. We’re often sat there and asked questions that we’ve been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I’m just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me."
My first thought was that dealing with repeated questions is just an annoying part of her job (we all have things like that in our jobs). The second part, the questions that create doubt, is a bigger point, but it also feels like something athletes just deal with all the time and are used to overcoming in their professional lives. It's not personal, after all. It's the same as people in certain fields (writers themselves, for instance) having to develop thick skin at the criticism they face.
But her statement upon withdrawing from the tournament was much different. It placed the actual (totally valid!) mental health/anxiety issues she faces more prominently, and it was easy to sit here and say, "Yeah, she's right, and well within her rights then to oppose these press conferences."
So maybe some of the blowback was just because of not-great messaging. Which is unfortunate, because this outcome is a bad one, and it's also possible that some of the people who initially cast doubt over her first statement wouldn't have had that skepticism. And I also wonder if there could have been some kind of better conversation with the tournament officials to find a compromise.
That was my initial reaction to her statement as well. My thought about her part about casting doubt in their minds made it sound to me like she was blaming the press for past failures or something like that. Her second statement really should have been her first and in that instance I think nearly all (but obviously not all because there will always be assholes out there) of the criticism she received would have been support.
Wonderful article. I wish people were able to feel more empathy to athletes. When Ja'Wuan James tore his Achilles working out away from the facilities, Denver cut him and he lost millions of dollars. The public's reaction? "Guy was a bum. He got his millions already and hardly played." If a construction worker is fired because he's developed chronic back pain from the job, nobody would go, "Well, he deserved to be fired. He's overpaid and always hurt." I have to think at least a little bit is out of jealousy. OK, maybe a lot.
I'm fifty-something with a wife, two daughters, a love of baseball ... but a pretty full head of hair. So clearly, I have no clue where Joe is coming from.
I have a tiny little insight into a tiny little piece of Osaka's issues. Depression and mental illness have taken a hold of parts of my extended family, including one of my children. It is trite and cliche to say it, but we as a society can understand an injury you can see or even something hidden but with a physical cause (e.g. cancer). We just don't grasp those that manifest as mental illness. It isn't weakness, it isn't a character flaw; it is a disease. I don't know what is best for Osaka, but do hope she finds it.
Your first sentance "emapthy is the toughest emotion" is technically wrong. Empathy is NOT an emotion. It is the understanding of another's feelings or state...empathy is the ability to understand another person. Sympathy is the emotion one typically associates with that understanding.
When I heard about Osaka, I immediately thought of Greinke who we now have on the Astros. He's a brilliant pitcher and great player, and is that not enough entertainment? I always feel bad for him when they forcibly stick mics in front of him, and I love seeing him answer with single words and then walk off. I find it completely disingenuous for all the media out there to be rushing to throw the tennis organizers under the bus. Yeah, Roland-Garros and friends were undeniably terrible. The same media that are rushing to Osaka's camp are the people that were shoving mics in front of her, asking the same stupid questions, treating her like a puppet that's supposed to dance to their prickly questions about her play, and so on. She didn't call out the organizers; she called out the media. They're entitled scum who still don't have a clue about mental health, which is ironic yet appropriate since most of them are narcissists. Osaka and Greinke attract their attention and salaries by being phenomenal at their sport. No one cares about a bad player that's a media darling. The quality of questions by the media is rock bottom in every sport. Why should anybody have to put up with that? It's disrespectful. I'm sure Osaka and Greinke might be a little more amenable to engaging with interviewers that intend to respect them and make it interesting and worth their while to answer questions. You won't find any of that in the national and international sports media. You can find it at the local level. You can find it from fansites. You can find it on Youtube. There are people in all those place that can respectfully interview celebrities, sports or otherwise. The capital-M Media, though, are just a pain-in-the-ass that want you to slip up in your press conference, so they push a dramatic narrative instead of having to come up with any real content. I don't blame the athletes for deriding them, and I hope many more start to do it.
Beautiful stuff and great analogy to Greinke, whose career has always been a bit beyond my orbit. The greatest lefthanded pitcher of my phavorite phranchise refused to talk to the media for most of his career, for whatever reasons. He still managed to give us more than we had any right to expect.
Great article, Joe. As a long-time Royals fan. I too first thought of Zack Greinke when this issue with Osaka blew up. Let's hope she gets the time and help she needs to be able to deal with her issues and the social pressures that come with being a world-class athlete in any sport - and let's also hope and pray that her story has a happy ending like Zack's. As always, you hit the nail on the head.
Love it as always Joe. This is just another example that indicates empathy appears to be in short supply these days. Made me wonder a few things:
1) Can empathy be taught? Are people generally less empathetic than we used to be, whether via our inherent nature or via external conditioning (looking at you Facebook)?
3) Do any 23-year olds have the poise, self- and worldly-awareness to avoid the communication gaffes that Osaka made? I know that at 23, I was a disaster of a human being...
I agree with you, Joe, and the other responders here that I hope Naomi finds and gets the help that she needs. Tennis is certainly better when she is out there doing amazing things on the court.
I do wish she had done a much better job at communicating this though, which is where I think a lot of the criticism is coming from. The way it happened, it looked like she was trying to have her cake and eat it, too: "I want to do these parts of the job that I enjoy, but I don't want to do these parts I don't enjoy." And doing so publicly and not trying to talk in private initially with the French Open Powers That Be then could make it look like she wanted to be treated differently and special from all the other players. I think the French could have probably done more than shrug and say, "Well, our hands are tied there's nothing we can do but penalize." I like to think that everyone involved is a reasonable person and some sort of compromise could have been reached to allow Naomi to still play and have some sort of modified press talk (do it virtually? have questions submitted by the press and have Naomi read those and then answer? I don't know).
I agree that her first statement didn't do a good job of getting her message across, but I think there's a good reason for that: talking about depression is hard. Like, it's really really hard. Unless you've lived with it, you likely don't appreciate how hard it is.
One reason it's hard is that depression doesn't make sense. You can be young, healthy, rich, famous, and incredibly successful, and still be depressed. It's not rational. A lot of living with depression is feeling bad *about being depressed* because you feel like you shouldn't be. When I was a kid, my dad (who meant well, and really tried his best to help) used to try to cheer me up by listing reasons why my life situation was good (a pretty solid list, I had to admit- in other respects I was a fortunate kid) and then conclude "you've got the world by the balls!" It didn't help, and the worst part is I didn't even understand why, because it seemed like it *should* help.
How do you explain something to others when you can't even explain it to yourself?
Another reason depression's hard to talk about is, for the most part, people don't want to hear about it. Sure, people are quick to say "it's a medical condition, not a character flaw" and other supportive things, but that doesn't change the fact that depression's a bummer. A weirdly intimate bummer. The number of people who are comfortable hearing about it will always be fairly small. When coworkers or casual friends say "how're you doing?" you're supposed to say "I'm good," even when that's a lie. And the experience of doing that over and over, almost every day, conditions you to treat depression like a secret, even if you don't really believe that. So when you need to set limits, you don't say "I need this for my mental health"- either you dance around the issue, or you make up a polite excuse.
I think a big part of having empathy for people with depression is realizing that they will generally do a bad job of making depression comprehensible, because that is an impossible task to begin with and our social expectations don't make it any easier.
I've been thinking about this a lot, and my initial reaction--to her initial statement--was, I'll admit, not fully empathetic, I think because of the way she worded it. And I wonder if that's why she got more negative response than she deserved for this.
In that pre-Roland Garros statement, she said, "I’ve often felt that people have no regard for [athletes’] mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one. We’re often sat there and asked questions that we’ve been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I’m just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me."
My first thought was that dealing with repeated questions is just an annoying part of her job (we all have things like that in our jobs). The second part, the questions that create doubt, is a bigger point, but it also feels like something athletes just deal with all the time and are used to overcoming in their professional lives. It's not personal, after all. It's the same as people in certain fields (writers themselves, for instance) having to develop thick skin at the criticism they face.
But her statement upon withdrawing from the tournament was much different. It placed the actual (totally valid!) mental health/anxiety issues she faces more prominently, and it was easy to sit here and say, "Yeah, she's right, and well within her rights then to oppose these press conferences."
So maybe some of the blowback was just because of not-great messaging. Which is unfortunate, because this outcome is a bad one, and it's also possible that some of the people who initially cast doubt over her first statement wouldn't have had that skepticism. And I also wonder if there could have been some kind of better conversation with the tournament officials to find a compromise.
That was my initial reaction to her statement as well. My thought about her part about casting doubt in their minds made it sound to me like she was blaming the press for past failures or something like that. Her second statement really should have been her first and in that instance I think nearly all (but obviously not all because there will always be assholes out there) of the criticism she received would have been support.
Wonderful article. I wish people were able to feel more empathy to athletes. When Ja'Wuan James tore his Achilles working out away from the facilities, Denver cut him and he lost millions of dollars. The public's reaction? "Guy was a bum. He got his millions already and hardly played." If a construction worker is fired because he's developed chronic back pain from the job, nobody would go, "Well, he deserved to be fired. He's overpaid and always hurt." I have to think at least a little bit is out of jealousy. OK, maybe a lot.
I'm fifty-something with a wife, two daughters, a love of baseball ... but a pretty full head of hair. So clearly, I have no clue where Joe is coming from.
I have a tiny little insight into a tiny little piece of Osaka's issues. Depression and mental illness have taken a hold of parts of my extended family, including one of my children. It is trite and cliche to say it, but we as a society can understand an injury you can see or even something hidden but with a physical cause (e.g. cancer). We just don't grasp those that manifest as mental illness. It isn't weakness, it isn't a character flaw; it is a disease. I don't know what is best for Osaka, but do hope she finds it.
Thanks, Joe, for expressing this situation so beautifully.