Josh Gordon

The child is father to the man. These words, found in William Wordsworth's poem My Heart Leaps Up (a full half-century before the birth of Sigmund Freud), articulated the idea that what so often happens to us in childhood—good or bad—can resonate within us for the remainder of our lives.

In the context of recently-suspended New England Patriots wide receiver Josh Gordon, this would appear to be true.

Gordon once confessed he never expected to live past the age of eighteen, such were the grim circumstances of the Houston neighborhood he grew up in. The only thing lower than his projected life expectancy were his expectations.

Without a foreseeable future, Gordon abused substances freely. Why not? It didn't matter. He was another kid in the ghetto destined to die young.

But Gordon didn't die. And owing to an unusual ability to simultaneously run and catch a football, he found himself forced to confront his autobiography. And it was tough.

It's easy to give up. It's easy to conserve energy and avoid the risk required to invest yourself in something and prove you can, even if the rest of the world seems hell-bent on proving you can't.

What's hard is believing in yourself. Putting it all out there and risking failure by believing in a dream. It is demanding in a way that abusing substances can never, ever be. It is an act that couldn't take Gordon further from his comfort zone.

This is the internal war Josh Gordon has been waging.

Despite his successes, Gordon is the sixteen year-old girl who looks in the mirror and sees a chubby, overweight loser. No matter how many people tell her otherwise. It is safe. It is familiar. Seeing anything else is too demanding.

It would mean the accepting the burden of great expectations, and Gordon absolutely cannot handle that.

I feel for him. I regret the distorted view he has of himself and the insidiousness that has encouraged him to accept it. I regret his inability to remove himself from the low-risk, low-reward dynamic of his childhood and put the low-quality fortune-telling depression and low self-esteem forces upon us behind him.

But most of all, I regret Gordon's inability to translate the freeing act of catching a football on the dead run and carrying it into the end zone into a physical manifestation of his ability to break-free.

It was an act that kept me from scraping the bottom of the barrel.

But Josh Gordon is not me. And I am not him. But the very best of me (and perhaps you, too) wishes it were different. That the child isn't necessarily the father to the man, but perhaps a knowing, caring big brother. One who could provide a gentle-yet-firm course reset when our internal nav spouts a glitch.

Good wishes aside, life is ugly. Good people suffer. And bad people feast on the succulent fruit of wealth and privilege. 

Gordon has never punched a woman in an elevator and dragged her from it by her hair. He's never been indicted on charges of murder and aggravated assault. And yet he is staring at the end of his career for enjoying a decriminalized substance many of us consume freely. 

At least his employer has its ducks in a row.

I'm hoping John Gordon not only finds the wherewithal to survive, but to thrive.