Oscar, and other all-consuming thoughts

So I've had the privilege of meeting Oscar. He's a great guy. Someone the country can be proud of. And now he's consuming the voracious news networks like OJ Simpson did in 1994. It's overwhelming, its completely mesmerizing and its somehow a little bit sick.

Half the population want to believe he's guilty, the other half want him to be innocent. There's something so polarizing about it - it makes the Jake vs Edward camp of Twilight seem like a beginners story.

Right now, the case is a media circus, with facts, half facts and blatant untruths being blended together into a potent cocktail that seems to have everyone arguing for or against with a passion I quite frankly find almost mind boggling in its intensity.

I've heard everything ranging from the obvious (he killed her, he didn't kill her) to the bizarre (it was Lance Armstrong who did it to distract from his doping, its the Mexicans trying to discredit Nike).

Where does all this stuff come from? Why is there so much emotion attached to this incident.

Yesterday, in Orange County, some crazy bastard with a gun shot and killed 3 people, then himself, in yet another gun incident. He tried to kill 5 others before he joined the joyous throngs of the Darwin Award winners. I am sure that each of those people is being mourned by many other people. And yet it barely even made the news.

So why is the Oscar story generating so much passion, and so much of the limelight?

Before I share my own thoughts on why this could be, I mentioned that I met Oscar a few years back. He was in love with one of my staff members at the time that I met him, and he used to visit our offices every now and again to come and see her.

He was just like any other guy who we met, but a bit more famous. He was happy some days, upset others and even pissed off once - he got into an argument with the car guard who almost closed the boom on his car.

Its easy to look back and remember only that incident and say, wow, he had a temper. But that was one out of many, and if truth be told, I lost my temper many more times with that same car guard over the same thing. And I can assure you, I never shot anyone.

So why is this story so captivating?

I think it all boils down to something very simple. I'll call it "Pedestalling". Yes, like putting someone on a pedestal.

Whenever people do this, to anyone, they lose sight of the person, and start seeing the symbol. And the polarizing issues start there - long before those people do anything at all really.

For some, there is a genuine desire to see these people succeed. They WANT them to do better, to succeed more, to live life to the fullest, because they identify with these people, and live vicariously through them and their success.

For others, there is a secret desire to see these people fail. To be dumped by loved ones, lose their fortunes, fall during a race, be secretly doping - anything at all that will bring them down. These people are jealous of the success and adulation that the famous folks enjoy, and want nothing more than to justify their own miserable existence by seeing these idols prove to have clay feet.

When something like this incident happens, I think people immediately fall onto one side of the fence. Those who admire the folks, and celebrate their successes, start finding reasons why this cannot be.

And of course, those who revile them use this as an immediate opportunity to voice their secret prejudice, and to instantly pronounce them guilty - their desire to have this be so overriding any possible truth without even a pause.

So what do I think?

I think that Oscar is a great guy. A worthy hero. A representative of our country, and what we can achieve when we set our minds to it. He's a symbol of success against adversity. Of making more of the hand he was dealt than most could have, or would have.

And I also think that the very fact that he is rumored to have a temper rules out any possibility that he could possibly be guilty of pre-meditated murder. Whoever heard of a hot-blooded person with a wild temper sitting quietly waiting for someone to go to the bathroom and then shooting them through a door.

As for the rest - did he really shoot her in a fit of passion, or by mistake?

We need to wait and see what the evidence brings out, and keep our belief in the man who was on Time's Top 100 most influential people in 2012.

I say support him, and believe in him, and let the little selfish person inside of you walk away from branding him a criminal before we even know the facts, just to justify your own shortcomings in life.

Underneath the media circus, there is Oscar the man, not Oscar idol. He may have done wrong, or he may have made a mistake - but either way, he did it as a man, not an idol, and whatever it was, it was no more, or less, human than any of us.

It never hurts to believe, even if you're wrong. Billions of people do it every day. Its called FAITH. Lets keep the faith in Oscar, and in his innocence, until its proven beyond a doubt that this is not the case. And even then, should that happen, lets pray for his redemption, not his punishment. In this life, and the next.