Recently two news stories have caught my eye. The first was that Andrew Huberman, super popular with fitness and personal development bros, is kind of an asshole to women, dating handfuls of them at the same time while pretending to be exclusive and not treating them very well. The story has gone on to say that a lot of the things he gives as indisputable facts of health in his podcast are not, that he uses scientific-sounding jargon purposely to make himself seem more of an authority than he is, and... oh, well, all kinds of bad stuff. Use your imagination. You can find many stories on it now, but this one might sum things up really well. Or you could always read the New York Magazine piece that broke the story.
Flash forward a few months and now a lot of stories are coming out about how author Neil Gaiman is something of a serial rapist and abuser. More and more women keep coming out against him. It's a little reminiscent of Bill Cosby, who was America's dad for decades until suddenly a host of women came out against him and showed us his dark side. Unlike Cosby, by the way, Gaiman doesn't deny any of the women or sexual encounters, but he claims they were all consensual BDSM. Again, if you Google it you can find no shortage to the stories. As Gaiman is a much higher star that Huberman, this story is developing much faster. Here's a recent one from Rolling Stone. Now just the other day, he was dumped from a comic he was writing. Like Cosby, if more women keep entering this story, it could turn out very badly for Gaiman.
And yeah, there is Bill Cosby himself. For decades he was one of the most beloved comedians and stars in America. Unlike many other modern comedians, he eschewed risqué humor, giving him a very family friendly image, and he was so esteemed that he held a position in the American consciousness right along side Mr Rogers, Levar Burton, and Bob Ross. But then his dark side came out and his downfall happened. You all know that story.
I kind of wasn't surprised when I read the Huberman story. I've enjoyed some of his podcasts in the past, but his word soup immediately is evident, a very common (but effective) tactic to make oneself seem more of an expert and gain authority over others, and that always made me dislike him a little. I never liked his advertising model either. So I don't know, maybe I was primed to not be surprised at bad news about him.
The Neil Gaiman news surprised me a bit more. While I can't say I like his novels—something about them always made them unreadable to me—I did admire his story. But maybe as a fountain pen user I was just won over by his praise of them and of the fact that he writes the first draft of all his novels longhand with a fountain pen. It's too bad it seems like he's not a nice guy to women, to put it mildly.
All this reminds me of a famous Zen Buddhist saying. "If you meet the Buddha, kill him".[1] This was said by 9th century Chinese Zen Buddhist Linji Yixuan (臨済義玄), perhaps better known by his Japanese name, Rinzai Gigen, due to the fact that he is considered the founder of Rinzai Zen, one of the three main branches of Zen Buddhism.
What does this mean? It can be interpreted a number of different ways, but one of the is to have no expectations of others. In this case, have no heroes. If you have a hero, kill that image, because you will inevitably be disappointed. The Buddha was not a hero, he wasn't a savior, he certainly wasn't a god; he was a human, with all the flaws that all of us humans have. So too, our celebrities and "influencers" aren't special or flawless and shouldn't be looked at that way. They are humans, they make mistakes, they do bad things sometimes.
When we put people on pedestals, we give them a power they don’t deserve, an illusion of infallibility that blinds us to their humanity. And when that illusion shatters, it can feel like a personal betrayal.
But what if we approached everyone—heroes, influencers, or even historical figures—not as paragons to emulate but as people to learn from, flaws and all? What if, instead of looking for heroes to worship, we sought values and actions worth aspiring to, while understanding that no one embodies them perfectly?
The idea isn’t to never admire or respect anyone. It’s to do so with open eyes, with the understanding that admiration doesn’t require idealization. The Buddha was just a man, and that’s exactly why his teachings resonate—because they came from a place of shared humanity. Maybe that’s where we should keep our focus: not on the false glow of heroism, but on the light we can cultivate within ourselves.
Now... who's the next public figure to fall from grace?
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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Mastodon. |
For some reason whenever I think of this saying, my brain usually brings it out as "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha." I suppose it sounds a little more poetic to me. Anyway, that is why the variant for the title and title graphic. ↩