If you’ve ever met a well-known celebrity, I bet you noticed their aura, that distinctive atmosphere that seems to emanate from them.

Their aura is like a halo around their head and gives off a bit of a glow. Here in sweet Williston Park, we have had plenty of chances to observe celebrities with just such auras.

Most recently Al Pacino was in town filming “The Irishman.”  When I interacted with him, he came across as humble, shy, and sensitive but his aura was a palpable thing hanging there right over his head.

Naomi Watts was in town during the filming of “The Book of Henry” back in 2016 and when I spoke to her, she had that glow about her as well but when you got up close to her you could see her shyness and her exhaustion.

My wife once met the famous pianist Arthur Rubinstein and she remarked that he seemed to have a halo around his head.

The famous carry an aura that we commonly refer to as charisma but surprisingly, they all seem extraordinarily shy and fatigued when you meet them. It is almost as if they are asking themselves who am I and how in the world did I get in this predicament called fame?

I once met Wynton Marsalis after his show at the Fairmont Hotel in San Fransisco and he was as shy and sensitive as a bird.

How paradoxical that these are the two traits of celebrity. They have this aura and they all seem shy and exhausted.

Michael Jordan made a telling remark to a journalist interviewing him for a television documentary about his life.

When asked what it was like to be famous he said, “Look around this hotel room. This is my life. The moment I step onto the street I am recognized and asked for an autograph or a photo. I spend a lot of time in hotel rooms.”

I think that celebrity aura is given to them by the public.  The public knows them from their cinematic or athletic or artistic achievements and therefore it is the public that projects the halo onto them.

Usually, the halo becomes a heavy burden. One of my more famous patients once said to me “Why can’t people see me for who I am? I’m just a guy that has one special craft and outside of that I’m a  regular person. I do not have any special insights into anything outside of my craft.”

It’s like what Mick Jagger once said to a political question asked of him “I don’t know anything about politics, and I don’t care to know anything about politics.”

The reality is that anyone who gets to be famous has a singular focus that consumes them and that allows them to get to the top of their field. They do not care about anything at all except for their craft.

I knew Gao Hong, the world-famous soccer goalie and I once asked her if she was going home that day to cook a meal for herself.

She said  “I do not know how to drive, I do not know how to shop and I do not know how to cook. I know how to do one thing. I know how to block soccer balls coming at me at high speeds and I’ve been doing that one thing for my entire life”

Perhaps the best story about a famous person who had an intense and singular focus was Norman Rockwell.

Rockwell was a well-known American illustrator who influenced the way Americans see themselves. He is the guy who painted those homey sweet images of American families sitting around the Thanksgiving table getting ready to feast on the turkey.

His paintings were loved by everyone for their sincerity and the way they told the tale of the American family.  But in his life, he never stopped painting, not even on Christmas Day.

When Christmas dinner was ready and his family was gathered around the table to eat, he would call out from his studio “Go ahead and eat without me, I’m under a deadline and I have to get their painting finished.”

Fame brings fortune and this aura of love that the public happily bestows upon the celebrity. This is as it must be because the famous actor or athlete or painter have earned this love.

Ironically, these geniuses are also isolated, consumed with a single craft, and do not care too much about people in any way.  They care about their craft. This obsession with craft and not people gives them all this bewildered, frightened deer-in-the-headlights look when you meet them.

One of my friends met Woody Allen at a party and described him as a quiet exhausted soul.

Celebrities are saintly in the gifts they give to the world and for that they all get halos but just like religious saints, they tend to sacrifice everything else in life as they do so.