Maybe you don't find your hands sweating as much at work as an NBA star, but it would still be cool to start off each work day by pouring talcum powder into your hands and ceremoniously throwing it into the air. Not to mention doing so over top of a pretty cool riff.
This is the idea behind Nike's ad hocking their Zoom LeBron VI sneakers. But it's something more than just hyping LeBron James' already great mythology. Sure, the spot begins and ends with LeBron, but the images in between capture the beauty and the question of this ad: Are we all little LeBron's in our own spheres?
The barber, the baker, the street-baller, the student, the 12 year old girl who's been banned from playing in the boy's league because she's too good... and everyone else who is at the game simply watching LeBron... They all chalk up in the same way the NBA's greatest player today does (I don't want to get into an MJ-LeBron debate here).
There's something beautiful about the idea that we all carry great potential into each of our daily endeavors, that we carry the potential into each of our offices and classrooms and homes that LeBron brings to the court. But at the same time there is something absolutely nerve-racking about that as well. To waste a day, a donut, a haircut or an 8th grade speech is to waste potential.
CS Lewis says that we are all immortal beings, whether we like it or not. Those who have mused on the effects of immortality have often, in literature, film and story, come to one of two options for how humans would live if faced with immortality. One option would be to see time as something that no longer confines and therefore something to pay no attention to, essentially wasting time without consequence. The other option is to see immortality as a freedom which gives such great capacity and potential that we do not waste even a second as we are constantly becoming who we will be forever.
If we see ourselves as immortal beings as Lewis claimed and we see the potential and capacity of that, why should we not take on each moment with the same ceremony and potential of LeBron? Toss some chalk and pick out a riff.
FYI: the song is called "Candyman" by a 90's hip-hop group called Conorshop
Check out Mark Romanek here... some GREAT music videos.
