Kobe Bryant turned philosophical during a recent shoe launch.
The Black Mamba says he is perfectly “comfortable” with the notion of death—literally, and in a basketball sense.
I went to Kobe Bryant’s shoe release event and asked him a bunch of questions about life and death https://t.co/FAHqJmZw6q
— Micah Peters (@micahpeters_) November 11, 2016
Bryant, 38, has fully embraced retirement from the NBA and is fully engaged in a new chapter of his life.
Per The Ringer:
We are sitting on top of a Mesoamerican muralist painting of a clock basically being orbited by specters of past versions of yourself, with past versions of your shoe. I got to ask, because I feel like the setting’s begging for it: What’s your relationship with death?
KB: “A comfortable one.”
Yeah?
KB: “It’s a comfortable one. It’s an understanding. You can’t have life without death. Can’t have light without the dark. So it’s an acceptance of that. When it came time to decide whether or not I should retire, [it was] really an acceptance of that mortality that all athletes face. And if you combat it, you’ll always have that inner struggle within yourself. … So … I’m comfortable with it.”
Related
Kobe Bryant Says He Doesn’t Miss Playing, ‘Not Even a Little Bit’
