Chief Thoughts #001: Naomi Osaka and Mental Health

I am going to start letting my shitty opinion known when it comes to the issues, events, and interests I have and of the day. I may review a film, book, or album too. I may talk about local, national, or world politics. I’m pretty all over the place. 

A recent event triggered this initial entry in a new series I’m calling Chief’s Thoughts. I will be posting videos and essays and/or commentary periodically on my personal blog (here) just as a place to work out my thoughts. I am trapped in my own head too often and writing, of course, is a great release for my sometimes profound and most often times inane and moronic thought processes. 

Naomi Osaka, world renown and elite tennis player, has been dealing with personal issues related to her mental health. She withdrew from the French Open as well as a tournament in Berlin to deal with her mental health issues. Not sure if mental health is the right term but it seems applicable. I have had my own battles with mental illness and her courage stood out to me. She did not bow out because she was a coward or because she was not mentally tough, or because she was a woman, or any excuse being ascribed to her, in my estimation. Those all could be false or completely true. Before I address that, again, I have dealt with my own mental health issues, and the health care system, and like the entities that control tennis, the system does not really care to deal with mental illness. 

Those of us who have been told that our minds may be corrupted in some way (that’s how I see it or used to see my diagnoses, that is why I battled with all my being against past diagnoses so vehemently) we have to accept the perception of others around us and understand that they do not understand our minds. I hate to be presumptuous because I deplore when people assume my actions, thoughts, or intentions but enough people have commented on my disposition, behavior, and my thoughts for me to understand that I omit an aura that is tailor made for a certain morose or melancholic or most often negative perception. 

I must say that Naomi Osaka does have support and that people are at least speaking about mental health and lending a caring word to her as she deals with her mind. In my experiences, there are people who empathize, who actually care, and want to deal with the issues that pervade all communities in this society. Some are allowed to seek help and told to seek help, some are told everything they do, think, and say is normal. That is to say that most people do not give a damn about mental health, not this system, not the media, not me, not anyone! It’s a part of this trend of fake care, fake empathy, and fake moral righteousness which is making people even more insane! 

Naomi Osaka graciously told the world that she was having a moment and she needed to step away and a lot of people judged her for it. That is indicative of how this society treats most illnesses. This society and all apparatuses pretend to care just enough to give a donation or accept one. 

My initial instinct was to judge her as an athlete and competitor. I understand that we look to elite athletes irrationally and Naomi Osaka is elite, we look to them to have more physical and mental toughness than us. They’re supposed to overcome the same deficiencies of us “common folks” because of what we have witnessed them accomplish in their field of endeavor. I also understand that athletes are most often contractually obligated to speak to the media and to make certain public appearances and they should not shirk contractual obligations because they hopefully (a lot of don't read contracts or fall victims to predator lawyers and agents who say they read the contract for us and have our best interests at heart) signed the contract understanding all of their responsibilities according to the mandates in the contract. 

But for a media to be as bothersome, prying, and persistently and unceasingly so. That fact coupled with the media’s want to ask questions regarding personal opinions about very sensitive and personal issues that really are not anyone’s business. I understand why Naomi Osaka may want to say, fuck this, fuck you people, I come to this tournament to fucking win not reinforce the media's corrupted morality. The media has created these figures and thinks that we need them as role models because they are using them as part of the fracturing of the home that ensures that children do not look up to their parents at all. 

That is not the fault of the athlete because I use great athletes to teach my children about work ethic, perseverance, and strength. What Naomi Osaka is doing takes incredible strength and perseverance. The media attempts to hold the athlete/entertainer accountable for their views, which should be holistically created (I hope, an honest critique of the media part of a holistic evaluation). But the media only asks questions to hold athletes/entertainers hostage by the media's corrupted views. 

These despicable editorialists only ask these nonsensical out-of-context questions in an attempt to make a name off their own harsh judgment of an excellent person. Media scumbags only own harsh judgment of the athlete/entertainers' personal views, their own faults never scrutinized. That is unerringly blatant, pernicious, and insidious. The media needs celebrity and accomplishment and sensationalism to perpetuate itself. All these media pundits looking to gain their own celebrity off of celebrity off of true accomplishment. Maybe that is okay in this society but to expect any human to just accept phishing campaigns from also-rans so that the also-ran can gain some sort of accomplishment or any lauding or lambent critiques is mind-boggling, mental illness inducing. 

I understand why any athlete or celebrity would not want to speak with these people. This does not make Naomi Osaka look weak or at all deficient. It actually makes her, tritely, incredibly strong. I know that is a platitude but it’s true. I know for a fact that she is stronger than me because I would have played that tournament got my ass whooped and went into a funk that would ensure I never win another tournament, I think. Especially in this new world where you’re able to ingest everyone’s opinion and all anyone can ever tell you is “unplug”, meditate, ground yourself, drink lots of water, eat right, exercise, feel better, smile, or tell you, “I’m stressed out too!” 

That is why I also downplayed what may be going on in my head. Everyone hurts. Everyone is crying. I just did not notice my own or I tried not to notice it. The media expects athletes/entertainers to be the entertainment through all times, especially the dark ones. Then back to indifference and enacting what I would say is an amorality. Familial and personal survival may be dependent on a certain amount of amorality and I think that it is true somewhat but I cannot take all of this lip service pretending to care. That to me usurps my thoughts of amorality and is actually suborning psychopathology. Lying about abuse because you purport to care. This lying about the care has become commodified into a mode of survival for charities, it is big business. Fracture the mind at all costs, we must psychoanalyze!

One of the ridiculous notions I have witnessed regarding Naomi Osaka's absence is the media touting, purporting that they are the reason we know the athletes. The athletes are the reason we know the media and we barely know you. We laugh at your supposed expertise and the words you scribble in between ads for athletic shoes and sports drinks. It is laughable when any member of the media attempts to argue that they create the sensational athlete/entertainer. 

All the media does is create the narrative around the athlete, maybe they can create the mystique, but mystique is nothing without performance. To think that people observe Naomi Osaka or any other athlete, any artist, or entertainer in the prime of their sport or craft and think about an article some unaccomplished editorialist wrote or some commentary from some pundit, is deluded. The people are still going to be in awe of the work, of the prowess, of the expertise, of the excellence. 

Naomi Osaka did not want to be a distraction and the media which does give anxiety, not only because they don’t do their job well for the people at all, they do it well for the corporations and the government, but also because it is the media’s job to infuse the athlete/entertainer with anxiousness because they attempt the hold the athlete/entertainer to a standard of behavior, to get them to think in the way the degenerate, bias filled media wants them to. The media is controlling perception and people see that, that’s why people are ignoring them more and more. The media knows that if the athletes/entertainers begin to ignore them, which they absolutely should, they’re finished like they will be anyway. The athlete/entertainer, the savant, the genius, the thoughtful, should not be subjected to the idiotic and moronic questions of these peons unless they are definitely resigned to their field of endeavor. 

I must say that athletes are role models only if you want to play the sport of your favorite athlete. This society furthers the destruction of the family by insisting that our role models just like all of our knowledge and understanding should come from outside of the home. That is why I know people do not listen to or read the works of their heroes. They just believe the caricature and created a symbol but figures, specifically Malcolm X, told us that athletes and entertainers can only be used as pawns because they are given their elevated position (which is the argument of some members of the media as to why athletes/entertainers should be forced to accept their interviews). But we are responsible for understanding that they have a pivotal role in our society but they should not have take on so many mantles.

Observe what has happened since the athlete/entertainer has taken up the mantle of progress. Why aren’t results being evaluated? So even in their supposed benevolence or activist mindset a lot of them don’t understand that they are being used as pawns for an agenda. I’m not sure what’s going on with Naomi Osaka and it is her choice if it becomes our business or not. All I know is that I understand having mental health issues and how debilitating they can be, even if you do not understand them yourself. I understand how I think I’m fine and some people around me will expect me to be normal and to behave a certain way or feel a certain mood and I cannot even pretend because I feel how I feel. I feel that is what the media and the institutions Naomi Osaka is propping up are attempting to do to her. Force her to feel a certain way about the gifts she was given and enacted! Not the other way around. Athletes/entertainers are being forced to submit to an opinion (a single thought process) that has been predetermined. More athletes need to step away from the media like Naomi Osaka did, and we all need to support the athletes/entertainers who do so.