I read Judy Carter’s blog post about Charlie Sheen with interest but missed the debut of his new radio show, Sheen’s Korner, which he calls “basically a kind of disorganized random experience of sorts.” (Before you go there, know that he subsequently tweeted it’s not one of his better performances.)
Like Judy, I have also tuned into the media frenzy of Charlie Sheen stories, but have to say that some of what he says makes sense to me. Like his not wanting to buy into the message they deliver at AA about giving it over to a higher power, and his tapping into his own source, and his insistence on supporting that. Learning to balance the powers, ours in relation to others who have power over us by their authority, like a boss, or public opinion. There are all kinds of people not having a purported public meltdown that are behaving in harmful ways to themselves and others, like Hollywood t.v. show executives.
I wondered recently why Kyra Sedgwick quit The Closer, saying she just didn’t want to do it anymore. She said she regretted the impact it would have on others’ careers but that wasn’t enough to make her want to continue the show. I wondered if she didn’t like the pressures of the life having a hit show put on her. Hollywood is known to be extremely sexist, I remember reading stories about a lawsuit filed by a woman who had been working as a writer’s assistant for the show Friends. The gist of this is that women just have to put up and shut up, or play along to get along. And there is obviously so much pressure on the women in the industry to be thin, thin, thin. Even now, Natalie Portman (even while pregnant) and Angelina Jolie are thin, thin, thin.
My point is, Charlie’s words (what I’ve read in the media) sound like they could come from a men’s workshop for empowering men beyond society’s ideals, the tiger blood in the veins, warlock, etc. Like shamans, magic, and bringing the spiritual realm-one that doesn’t put down the individual-to light. This is not an unappealing message.
Be A Role Model - Or Just Look Like One
Now Piers Morgan has blogged about Charlie, too, and asks: why hasn’t anyone talked about his behavior toward women? Well, considering the ruling by the Supreme Court in the lawsuit against Friends, and the rulings in other lawsuits, and interactions that occur in homes and offices across the nation and world daily, women cannot expect respect; our journey is ongoing. But this can’t be blamed on Charlie Sheen, and why should we be looking to him for answers?
, known as “Mahatma” (“Great Soul”) Gandhi, in which he asked about the philosophy of “ahimsa” (nonviolence) and how it works in practice: