What is so great about Winning? It’s a curious time here in Detroit as our sports teams are doing rather well. With the Lions at 5-0 for the first time since 1956 one has to wonder if this is merely just synchronistic with global warming and the whole demise of the planet in 2012. Perhaps patience has paid off and we in Detroit are to be the sports victors of the end times. Like Spartacus fighting his way out of the Colosseum, will winning sports teams lead us from the oppression of a dysfunctional city government? What compels crowds to gather, and get so emotionally involved in the outcome of a sporting event? Is it as simple as natural selection? What does it say about people obsessed with the watching of sport? Many times the viewers are far from the fittest, strapped by their own sloth into a recliner to cheer on ‘their team’ which is generally their team based on geographical proximity, and or some sort of resonance with a team philosophy. As a youth, I recall being rather fond of Ohio State, in part because Woody Hayes was such a dick, and in other part because they weren’t Michigan. It isn’t just the good ole USA that is obsessed with sport. The entire world should plead guilty, just look at the Olympics, a tradition carried on for centuries.Why do we even watch that shit? As if ice skating pairs will dictate foreign policy to come. You choose your favorite based on costume, or nationality, or physical appearance, but rarely who executes the perfect triple salchow. You like someone based on the country they are from, not necessarily who they are as a person. You don’t possess that knowledge because in truth they are all probably little skating robots who have had this shit shoved down their throats since they were three and would like nothing more than to eat. But I digress, I can rail on the Olympics in an Olympic year. In keeping with world sport obsession look at Football (aka to us simps as soccer), a sport that inspires looting and killing in some cases. Soccer thugs are a whole different genre, the notion of a head butt at the pub enough to send the average American sports fan packing. I wish we watched more soccer here, thankfully the World Cup has increased our exposure exponentially, thanks to that and the minivan, soccer is no longer just for the prep schoolers.
We have multiple forms of winning offered to us these days. If you don’t care for Football(any kind, including Aussie Rules), there is Basketball, Hockey, and Baseball to contend with. Something for everyone. Does the fact that we watch others fighting it out to be number one in their particular field make us losers? Observing vs participating? Are athletes revered for their skills, that they possess or the fact that they have a great job that everyone wants but few have the skill for. Not unlike actors and actresses – everyone wants to be special, to have something other people want, to ‘win’. Does winning make existence on this planet take on more meaning than was originally intended?Is religion merely another form of ‘winning’? Just a passive aggressive one, saying ‘ok, in this life maybe I didn’t get everything I wanted, but in the next one, well, the next one is going to be great’.
What about human nature makes us want to win? As a highly competitive person, I have never really sat back to question why being the best is so important to me. Instead, I have spent hours wondering why I am not, and punishing myself for it and inflicting my own impossible standards on people that could never live up to them. That being said, other people would probably view it differently. I am walking around feeling like I’ve lost, when really I should be questioning why I have had it so easy. By visual definition, is the man in the business suit with the expensive car the ‘winner’ whilst the bum on the street the ‘loser’? I mean sure, material goods are great, having a nice house, a nice car and nice clothing – all fine, but it doesn’t necessarily make you a nicer person. Most super wealthy people I know are insecure and use their money to insulate themselves from the realities of this world. On the flip side, the ‘losers’ of this world those with nothing in the matter of material goods, don’t pay taxes, don’t have mortgages and could care less about taking a shit in your backyard. Granted, no one starts out the day excitedly shouting I want to be ‘homeless because it is awesome’. But speaking to the individual and perhaps the notion that freedom could be a form of winning – which person has more freedom? Winning these days really just means insulating yourself from the losers and it is never, ever enough. Until you can sort out the inner referee (who this month will wear pink because fighting breast cancer means Winning!).
People want to classify themselves as something. Our time here seems destined to be defined by something. We desperately cling to the ideas that we are special, that we are winners, while the rest of the world doesn’t understand. Perhaps the basic ‘we’re number 1′ chant should be reserved not for over payed athlete praise, but for the daily mantra spent whilst looking in the mirror picking out the flaws that didn’t seem to exist yesterday, or did, but they have just gotten larger. As a former cheerleader, be it merely Junior Varsity (loser), I am very familiar with the blind support of a team, of the butterflies associated with winning, almost winning, and the despair of losing. The cyclical build up of desire, anticipation, along with the ultimate result, either the elation of winning which lends itself for a desire of more winning, or the sadness of losing, which usually involves a few shots, perhaps a hangover, but ultimately really doesn’t affect anything at all. If Michigan State beats Michigan, it does little to wash away the fact that I pissed away my education on easy classes and schedules that didn’t involve getting up before 10am. My choice of university does little to negate the fact that I have always known I would birth the Anti-Christ. Though as i get older (Losing!) perhaps that is not my designated purpose.
Having started this a week earlier, and now finishing it when both the Tigers and the Lions have lost, does it really change anything? There is going to be another game, several if you include hockey season, where there are winners and losers. Sure Oprah retired, but now she is just giving life classes on her network. Nothing ever really stops. There are new hopes just as there are always going to be disappointments. It’s exhausting. Much like this entry has become. I don’t have the answer, but it is probably likely that I am going to buy a scratch off lottery ticket on my way to work today. Maybe, just maybe I will win something.
