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It is football season again. I may have changed in some ways, directed myself in a new direction, and taken on life in a new way, but some things simply will not come to me. Football, or any sport really, just does not entertain me. Boxing used to, until I realized how horribly rigged the sport is. Rugby could be good but when I had a television it was not available and now I do not watch or even have a television. All other sports are wastes of time. If I did like a sport, I would much rather play it than watch.
I never understood why men have champions. Women? Sure, that is age old and flirtatious. But men? Why have a pack of players be their heroes and win acclaim in some weird way for the fan? Is it really that interesting to most men? I know or knew the rules when i played, learning both college and pro rules just 'cause. And, playing the game itself is hard work no doubt. But simply watching people run around, tossing a ball (pick one, or kicking it) up and down a field, and even being pretty sure which side will win never interested me. Then again, even with car racing, I only every watched to see accidents. There were not enough accidents to keep me interested. After 50 or 500 or whatever loops, with a few changes here and there, I was asleep on the couch.
What is worse, because of games, there is no blogging. The blog world folds up and collapses onto couches, into lounge chairs, and feeds it's collective face on food doctors say not to eat. Beer and whiskey taint the thing, though that I could enjoy. It might even make the games worth watching should I be invited to one of the pagan events. But mostly I pout as the blog world ends.
It is interesting to note however, how much of the blog world is dominated by football (and other sports) fans. Ah well. I suppose being raised by a single woman has left me without that aspect of American manhood, lame as it is. Perhaps that is the last vestige of man's old world left to him. Most men simply cannot take a risk of being hurt while having 'fun', as they have responsibilities. Perhaps the task of making a living cause such exhaustion that playing sports is precluded. In any case, it is the fact of things. But it does amaze me, as bad as the economy is doing, that sports tickets and spending is not really down, to my knowledge. I guess some alters of sacrifice are simply more important than others.
Oh well. I hope your team(s) won yesterday (and will today?). BLOG, darn it.
Good night.
Well hallelujah, I thought maybe I was the only one.
ReplyDeleteI attribute it to being raised by a father who detested team sports. As a child he was among those always picked last during required sports activities, and came to see the whole team sports paradigm as an excuse to permit older stronger boys to exploit and abuse younger, smaller and weaker children. He was a natural libertarian, though he did not come to realize that fact until many years later.
But even with that retrospective, I cannot look at the whole sports fan mentality with any kind of real comprehension. I've always explained it away as a sublimation of warrior impulses that seem to be hardwired into our genetics. Since it is unlikely that the townspeople of one burg will band together and go raid, pillage and burn the next town over in today's world, the impulse gets satisfied when the town team and the team fans head over to the other town stadium to match up against their best "warriors". If there is a rumble in the back streets after the game amongst the young hotheads of each town, so much the better.
Funny critters we humans are...
Actually, I wondered about you. I did not say it, but while I was writing that, I simply thought, "Sort of knowing D.C., I am curious where he comes down on this."
ReplyDeleteI can see your point now, clearly, too. And it actually adds to something else, another reason, why I do not enjoy team sports. Constantly moving as a child, I had to fight every place we moved. Sometimes only a few times, but sometimes it would escalate.
The escalation would go one of two ways, either bigger kids, more of them, or the worst was in third grade being pounded on by 6th and 7th grade brothers who ganged up because their brothers, in congregate, could not get the job done and I think they feared they couldn't do it singly either (that one hurt, but they got theirs, let me tell you!). So, I was always an outsider. I learned to deal with my problems quite creatively and violently, when needed. But, alone, on my own. Mother was told of as little as possible, and teachers were only used when it was more than just convenient, but necessary. I learned how to use mind, body, and spirit, alone. Teachers don't like crybabies (or outsiders) either, but they know when there is real danger too. The trick was to let them figure out the danger without telling them, diplomacy and planning worked well in that.
So, team sports seemed like a bit of a sissy thing. Especially when I could not count on my 'allies' to hold up and be tough. And, being an outsider, I was never utilized as I should have been. In spite of my coach telling me I only did okay, I won secondary all conference (for turnovers and sacks) when I played on a high school team of 12 (we played against teams of 50 or more) and we never won a game. He never even told me about the accolade.
It sounds similar, if for different reasons, to what you are suggesting. So, your father was libertarian in nature? Some acorns really don't fall far from the tree! Good golly, it's in the seed! *grins* It is good to have an ally in this.
On the good side, we have more dough for real things, like guns, survival kit, more time for whatever, and no withdrawal when the big bag comes to our neck of the world.
I'm not that into sports either, i don't mind watching some of them, but over the years i turned off because of the amount of money involved, somethings i think are a bit too much, like when sports folk start having tantrums because they have an extra ounce of fat or something. And the amount of money is costs to follow a team or sport is simply astounding. Not for simpletons like me i say.
ReplyDeleteMK,
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely that aspect. I am not sure how people do it. If it were just some who went to games, or went to games once in a while, that would be one thing. But every game and for several sports, and sometimes several teams per sport? Someone out there must be making fortunes. Well, or going so deeply into deep they can never see the light.
At what point in debt does someone just say, "What the heck, in for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well ride this rocket all the way to the bottom and enjoy it while I can."? At one time I did think about it, but I fixed what I could and mostly quit while I was behind.
You would think someone would feel guilty for their part in the collapses of the economic system, but bankers to athletes to team owners to gambling houses, as long as they get their cut (and still think it actually has value, or can trade it off for something of value while the fraud lasts), they simply do not care.
I've been up late, sorry about the ramble rant.