LeBron, Twitter, and Karma

After a particularly poor performance by his former team (a 55 point loss by Cleveland) LeBron James reportedly tweated that karma was a female dog and the Cavaliers deserved their ignominy for wishing ill upon him for his move to Miami. Or something like that.

Three things caught my eye about this story. First, LeBron provides another example of the hazards of being a 25 year-old young man. His neo-cortex is still wiring up, and for that reason he is still very capable of making very poor decisions, like The Decision or taking a 25 foot fall-away jumper. All parents of young men have witnessed this handicap countless times but are often not aware of the cause.

The male brain literally takes longer to fully engage the higher cognitive processes that allow for what the Bible calls wisdom. Our daughters come with a genetic advantage here that they may or may not avail themselves of. Nevertheless, men are slower to get wiser. The good news is that we do catch up. Many lady readers will claim this happens by age 50-55 or so, but it does happen.

Second, because of the lack of wisdom, Twitter should simply be outlawed for anyone under 30. When LeBron, or any young person, has a mental impulse he can go on Twitter and immediately let the world knows how he feels. We, the waiting public, are then treated to the equivalent of a 140 character adolescent emotional grunt, semi-intelligent, but really quite silly and perhaps even lewd and hurtful. Compare this to former days when in order to write a letter you had to take pen and paper (or even a quill and papyrus), sit down and carefully compose thoughts into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs ( I read about this in a history book). That lengthy process served as a buffer, a mental filter to prevent a great deal of stupidity. Today there is no filter! Combine the ease of the technology with the under-developed young male brain and you get LeBron’s tweat, or worse. Like Kanye West.

Back during The Decision someone wrote LeBron has Ivy League issues and is getting community college advice. This latest tweet is an example. Someone should let LeBron in on some ancient wisdom: “Good sense makes a man slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Prov. 19:11). Overlook the offense, LeBron. And shut down the Twitter account.

Finally, karma. Space does not allow a full flowering of thoughts, but I’ve always been puzzled that people prefer the idea of an impersonal force to a personal God. Of course, I also object to the idea that God (or karma) is out to smite every wrong-doer. If that were the case then we would all be limping. Ironically, that is what LeBron was doing soon after his twitter-fit. He sprained an ankle against the Clippers and had to miss the following game against the Nuggets (which the Heat lost by 28). Maybe his teammates will shut down the Twitter account for him.

As always, it is best to live by grace and let your gracious kindness be made known to all people (Phil. 4:5). Hold your tongue. Cool your anger. Until then, stay away from Twitter.

Dr. Terry Ellis

January 14, 2011