Submitted by: Michael Spindell, guest blogger
“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes – not that you won or lost -
But how you played the Game.”
by Grantland Rice
How many of us grew up with the paraphrase of these words ringing in our ears as we participated in all of the competitions that humans partake in. These sentiments represented the epitome of humans engaging in fair contests, the object of which was defining dominance in a particular field and/or activity. We were all supposed to be “fair”, “play by the rules”, honor our opponents and most of all treat them with respect. Much of this was first defined in Western Culture by the Code of Chivalry which not only defined how men hacked each other to death on the battlefield, but also how they were to treat the “fairer” (weaker) sex. As the merchant class rose and nobility declined, Chivalry was subsumed in Western Culture by the notion of “fair play”. That all of these concepts have been but hypocritical touchstones meant to add the veneer of human nobility, to human competition, is rarely admitted by those who promote competition for financial and/or political gain.
Thoughts of this came to me as I watched the Olympics this year, listening to the portentous palaver of the announcers, discussing the contests and the purported values behind them. Yes I felt tears of patriotic pride as Gabby Douglas won the gymnastics Gold Medal, but I also saw the pain on the face of Viktoria Komova, who “only” won the Silver Medal. Implicit was that the Russian gymnast had failed in her quest and that she would forever be marked by this failure. This is the hypocritical dichotomy that is pursued in all avenues of competitive human endeavor when reported upon by the media.
Humanity reached the top of the “food chain” by defeating the competition over eons of strife with other fierce predators. While there are still valid arguments on each side of the question as to how human society developed, whether in a spirit of cooperation, or as a rigid imposition of the will of the “leader”, we cannot question that we attained our status because of our predatory talents. Once the “order” of society was imposed humanity began to learn to sublimate battles to the death for proof of supremacy, into “contests” of talent. We learned to sort out our “hierarchy” through these contests and indeed they have developed into a wide range of competitions that most of us use to determine our places in the world. This is not a controversial idea, but even so I would like to take a step back from it and look at the obvious background of human competition that is missed as we “crown” our champions and pity those who could not measure up. The Olympic Movement is a very problematic one. I could go into its mixed history of bigotry, commercialism, deception and tragedy, but that is perhaps for another time.
What I want to explore is the short shrift given by the media to the incredible individual efforts made by so many people who have dedicated their lives to attaining the worldwide stage that the Olympics represent and yet have fallen short of being able to participate, much less attain medals. Since attaining its worldwide popularity the Olympics has bred the spirit of competition in various fields in all corners of the world. For events like gymnastics, or swimming, to even begin to think of getting to the Olympics requires a dedication in early childhood to endless hours of practice and competition on all levels. This is actually true of success in all sports and as the dedicated child grows the competition begins to “weed” out those who lack the talents and/or dedication to their chosen competitive field.
An eight year old that has beaten all those in her county at swim meets finds herself finishing last in a Statewide competition. She might shrug off that defeat and redouble her training efforts, possibly increasing her talents to the point that by High School she has become competitive Statewide, or she may simply adjust to the possibility that the “Olympic Dream” is not possible for her and go on to pursue other avenues towards her personal vision of success. Is only being the best swimmer in ones’ county a failure?
No one would have ever, at any stage of my life, have confused me with being an athlete. Yet I spent much of my childhood participating in all kinds of sports, though never on an organized basis. I have my memories of triumphs and my memories of defeats. I spent hours in solitary practice sessions learning to throw and field a ball off a brick wall. My place in the pecking order was determined in “pick-up” ball games, since I was always chosen near to last. As much as I desired to be considered “good” among my peers, I came to realize that for me being considered “fair” was a triumph. What of those I played with who were the “Captains” choosing, or the first choices? Some went on I suppose to play organized baseball in High School but none ever made it in college sports, or went on to play professionally. This is as it is for most people who engage in competition on all levels. It is but a special few that rise to the point where they can represent their nation on the world stage.
The question remaining in my mind, as these games draw to their conclusion, is whether those “losers” feel satisfaction in the fact that even though they’ve achieved no medals, their lifetime of effort was worth it? Do we really live in a world where it only matters “how you played the game”, or is it that only “winning” that counts? When you start so young to dedicate yourself to the achievement of success in sport does “failing” leave you with emptiness and recriminations?
Aside from sports our particular American culture is one that worships perceived “success”. This success can range from tangible achievements in given fields, the amassing of great wealth, political office, academic recognition and/or simply being born into a notable family. With the advent of the mass media we see that even appearing briefly on television can turn someone of little accomplishment into a “celebrity”. Jonathan Turley, the creator of this blog is a legitimate “celebrity”. He appears regularly on TV, is renowned for his championing of the Constitution via both the courts and in the press. To all of us who sojourn here, he is well-deservedly famous and a figure of respect for all that he has accomplished. Yet with it all, Professor Turley is nowhere near as famous a celebrity as the “Octomom”, Paris Hilton, or the Kardashian family. With respect to the Kardashian’s, remember it was their patriarch, the lawyer Robert Kardashian, who put them into a position to achieve fame by being O.J. Simpson’s original attorney in the murder case. In the Celebrity Fame Game, all that our Professor has going for him is defending a family made famous by being polygamous on a reality show. The quite tangible accomplishments of his career are well recognized by his peers, his students and his followers, yet it is doubtful that he will ever be offered his own “reality” show, or even discussed on “Entertainment Tonight”.
At my advanced age, I can truthfully say that I look back on my life so far as a successful one. In my own particular terms I’ve played the game well, despite lack of wealth, celebrity and/or outside recognition of achievement. Perhaps though I was never driven, or drove myself to achieve anything more than a woman to love and the fulfillment of children resulting from that love. To be perfectly honest I’ve always had an arrogance about myself to the extent that I’ve always liked and believed in me, so I’ve never really cared what other people thought of me. I would hope that most people would feel that way about themselves, but my training and my career have shown that not to be the case. When I see a sixteen year old singer in front of millions of people on “American Idol” saying that winning that contest is the most important thing in their life, I believe that singer and I grieve for that singer. I understand now that outward trappings of success often mask inner pangs of longing that will never find solace, or peace.
This is then my tribute to all of those whose losses the mass media culture decries as failure. In my opinion it is “how you play the game”, since in the end as mortal beings there is little comfort in the immortality of records, money or other achievements. Perhaps it is that belief though that has ensured my lack of outward fame, wealth and celebrity. If only I tried harder, dedicated myself more and refused to accept losing I could have been a contender. Since I’ve already admitted my arrogance in not caring about your judgment of me, perhaps you might give your own judgment of yourself, or whether you think playing the game well, is just as good as winning.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Great article and timely….. One thing I’d add is athletes “Gaming the Game”……or conversely cheating to win…..
Sadly, it seems to me the want of much of the population is to be entertained rather than educated but what is worse is how programming decisions are contributing to a feedback loop in the industry.
Shock value is often the determining factor. It is more difficult to write a quality script than it is to show foolish people embarassing themselves. Plus, it is cheaper to produce. If these type of shows rate higher they are more likely to be chosen for next fall. One of the accomplishments of television these days is now we have 900 channels of “nothing on.”
Mike Spindell, Bravo! You said so eloquently what myself and many folks think. I coached baseball 40 years, from Little League to American Legion, inner city, to blue collar, to upper middle class. During that era, 1975-2006, I saw a paradigm shift in sports. At the beginning of my coaching career kids/parents were similar to my experience as a young athlete. Kids played all sports, stars in some, role players in others. In the 80′s it started changing. Parents became akin to stage parents, pushing their kids to play one sport so they could get a scholarship, be an Olympian, etc. It’s out of control now.
Baseball was my love as a kid and I was pretty good. I was good @ football but didn’t really like it, too much practice not enough games. But the blue collar in me kept me playing. I loved basketball almost as much as baseball, but I wasn’t very good. I got cut from the high school team which was tough. But, I sucked it up and played CYO, merely for the love of playing and not feeling inferior per se; just knowing I wasn’t good enough to play varsity.
You captured in this piece what is lost, the love of competition. Most athletes will say they learned a lot more from defeat than victory, much more from failure than success. Thanks for you well crafted opinion.
Even more significant than “the love of competition,” in my opinion, is the love of the PLAY itself. When kids play, even a “game” that has no winner, they should enjoy playing. That’s purportedly WHY they play in the first instance. Adults can play for the joy of playing. Competition itself is only a by-produce; we have become focused on it as if it’s the point.
“Humanity reached the top of the “food chain” by defeating the competition over eons of strife with other fierce predators. While there are still valid arguments on each side of the question as to how human society developed, whether in a spirit of cooperation, or as a rigid imposition of the will of the “leader”, we cannot question that we attained our status because of our predatory talents.”
That is the doctrine of the military colleges, which “educate” youth in a nation that spends more on imperialism than all the other nations put together (MOMCOM: A Mean Welfare Queen). They got it originally from Social Darwinists and advocates of Eugenics of the type that indicated human behavior was genetically programmed.
The greatest predators the Earth has seen were destroyed 65 million years ago by an asteroid that formed the Chicxulub (pronounced chick-shoo-loob) giant crater at the tip of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.
It had nothing whatsoever to do with natural selection, genetics, or biological competition.
The tiniest life forms, microbes, survived that, The Fifth Mass Extinction.
Now, 65 million years later, 98% of our DNA is microbial, that is, put there by microbes, which are symbiont with us, not predators.
I fail to see how “One hundred and fifty years of biological orthodoxy ” (Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London) can be seriously considered as science anymore.
Many, many years ago we held an “Olympics” for all the kids at a family reunion. The day before the competition we asked the children about medals and they told us that everybody should get gold but the one who won each event should stand on a stool to accept his/her medal.
Everybody went home with ten gold medals (poker chips sprayed with gold paint), one for each event, and for those who placed 1st in an event, the memory of standing a foot above the others and accepting their applause.
Malisha, This is a male/female thing. There’s this thing called testosterone. And, when it hits boys you better have some positive activity for that hormonal energy. Competition is a great choice. Play, particularly when young is very important. However, in this world, whether you like it or not, there is competition, be it for school, jobs, careers, etc. To not train our kids[male and female] how to compete, and to compete righteously, is akin to parental malpractice. I think Title 9 has been very important in teaching young women how to compete. It sort of comes naturally for those w/ testosterone
You quoted sportswriter Grantland Rice at the beginning of the piece. He was a sportswriter, but I am also reminded of what UCLA Bruins football coach Henry Russell (“Red”) Sanders, said: “Winning is not the most important thing; it is the only thing.”
The Modern Olympic creed was written by its founder, Pierre de Coubertin: “The most important thing….. is not winning but taking part,” referring to the Games.
Too many spectators, players and even governments have an attitude more like Red Sanders than de Coubertin or Grantland Rice.
As for me, the older I get, the more I lose interest in the Olympics. I must confess that I did not watch a single minute of the Olympics. When I did watch TV, it was usually shows about actual crimes, or documentaries on science. I would rather watch Morgan Freeman narrate “Through the Wormhole” on the Science Channel than a whole afternoon of sports. The reason I have lost interest is the exact thing Raff writes about. I do enjoy NASCAR because of the different attitude about winning. The racers like to win, but just finishing in the top ten is a big deal.
“While there are still valid arguments on each side of the question as to how human society developed”
One author talks about those “valid arguments”:
(
(The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution). But we still hear a lot about “natural selection” don’t we?
The book was written a couple of years ago, before the current human-microbe genetic research that has led to a revolution.
Why are we not talking about 98% of our DNA, but resting our textbooks on only 2% of our DNA?
Why do we ignore the most prolific life forms that have survived FIVE mass extinctions on the Earth?
Because we like to think we can game the system even to the point of destroying it in our glorious great game we call war.
We can’t.
Nick,
You got what I was aiming at. The only time I ever participated i organized sport was Little League at age twelve. Growing up I had never played actual baseball, merely softball and variations like stickball. Tall for my age though, with a good arm I was selected for the LL “Majors” and put on the best team in the league. Because I’ve always been slow afoot my two best positions were First Base and Catcher. My team had both the All Star First Baseman and Catchers in the league and they were significantly better than I. I hated the experience ad the fact that I’d play perhaps a inning a game and I quit after six games. Nevertheless, my summers were spent playing baseball in daily pickup games, which I thoroughly enjoyed even with my being at best a fair player. I played softball regularly into my 40′s when a heart condition finally stopped me. Having had a heart transplant 21 months ago I am again playing
softball this summer and guess what, most of those I play with are significantly better than me. So what, it’s still fun for me.
I agree with you that there has been a significant change since the 80′s. The involvement of parents in their children’s athletic careers can be stifling, especially when those parents seem to live vicariously through their children’s accomplishments. You will note that many of the Olympians like Viktoria Komova, had parents who were also Olympians. how much of Viktoria’s distress at winning “only” Silver was related to disappointing her mother? My athletic memories are quite dear to me, even though I was never a good player. My “greatest” athletic accomplishment was hitting a grand slam home-run, in the bottom of the ninth, with two out and my team losing 6 to 3. This came in a Saturday pickup game in Prospect Park in 1980, yet the memory is dear to me. My future wife was at the game, but wasn’t watching when I did it. It was a glorious moment anyway.
Nick, we used to have a guy on some of these threads who would educate me on the male/female thing by calling me a Feminazi and a “silly c*nt” and sh*t like that, and I still believed that I had understood the basics better than he had. (He’s either not on the current threads or changed his name or something but nowadays I can say something about men or women without calling forth a firestorm of protest.) The only reason I can see for testosterone to correlate with competitiveness is that, biologically, men are designed to want to compete with other men in order to attract someone (a woman of child-bearing years) to carry their genes into the next generation for them. By showing the women that they are the physically fittest of their male group, they have a chance of getting the cooperation (in that endeavor) of the women who will be most likely to help them succeed at that goal.
I’m not here to tell you I “get it” more than you do or that you can’t instruct me in the ways of testosterone, but I raised a male child who not only knows how to compete, he knows how to lead, and he’s damn good. But not because competition was the major goal of his childhood. When he took “tumbling” (a precursor to gymnastics) he was the best in his class so the teacher used him for the demonstrator. He practiced a lot at home so he would be good enough to do the demonstrations perfectly and assist his teacher; having “won” and been the best was a responsibility for him. One time in second grade, he thought he should win a prize and he didn’t win it. We dealt with that and then I advised him to write a book about it, small book, anything he wanted to say. He wrote a book (illustrated it nicely) entitled: “What happens when you like a prize better than you like yourself?” He didn’t enter the book in any contests, but maybe he should have.
Of course, if the original purpose for men to compete (so much, so constantly, so passionately) was for women, what has happened now? Now men compete BEYOND the goal of succeeding at getting women to help them reproduce; now they compete with everyone including women; now they don’t stop competing even when the other competitors are far behind. Now they have increased the distances between the winners and the others so that there are BIG WINNERS and MILLIONS OF LOSERS. Now everything has morphed into something quite addictive about winning.
Now, also, our culture has things so turned around that “every dog [should] ha[ve] his day” and there’s more competition among women for MEN than vice versa, and that’s one of our biggest problems, in my opinion. If women were choosing mates rather than seeking to be chosen BY mates, men would be competing in all the ways that benefit the NEXT generation, which would be as it should be. Don’t get me started.
Malisha 1, August 11, 2012 at 11:39 am
…
Of course, if the original purpose for men to compete (so much, so constantly, so passionately) was for women …
=========================================
I was taught that too.
When the women began competing for my attention and affection I became confused.
It caused me to read.
I found even more perplexing ideologies:
(Mammals Made By Viruses). A virus that allows your placenta to function properly, or else, is more important to your having children than submitting to a male who won the gold medal in your heart.
“What happens when you like a prize better than you like yourself?” (Malisha’s son) … fantastic!!!
Blouise, thanks. Every time somebody realizes how cool my kid is, I get this rush like I won a gold medal.
My kid has a great way with turning a phrase. Two of his standards now are:
“Worse things have happened to better people” [when disappointed]
and
“Shoulda woulda coulda” [whenever]
Malisha,
If you can find the book, I’d enjoy reading it.
I skippd the comments to come here. Is that arrogance? Perhaps.
What to do? To praise? The blog speaks so well for itself that my words could add little. Those who know me or think they do are not interested in another story.
So, it will be a “We do it differently in Sweden” story.
It is a sport growing slowly internationally. The Brits have a variant which can be play ïn the deserts of Saudi (as I did with them) where there are no forests.
It is “orientering”.
The competition requires from a given start point to find your way through a forest to certain waystations and then to goal, with the help of a compass and a detailed topograöhic map.
The value, other than the exercise is the social atmosphere. It can be done from 5 years of age to whatever age, all in age graded groups and by sexes of course. It is thus a family sport, giving the chance of those enhancements to competition within and between families, etc.
There is even a world championship for the best.
Is becoming a world champ the purpose? No, not even in dreams of much money, career, etc. Is it becoming a rich athlete? No. Is it beconing a celebrity. Of course not.
Companionship and love are the rewards.
Which I think answers one of MikeS’ questions.
Out at the radio control flying field the other day, some of the folks were talking about the kid who has won national and international championships in his age group several years in a row. He is now a teenager. He flies radio controlled precision aerobatics. His father makes him practice on the R/C computer simulator up to five hours a day. One of the guys observed that he bet the kid never flies again after he leaves home to be on his own.
That is probably going to be exactly what happens. I have seen that phenomenon before.
All sports, I feel, are modelled after A) the chase for food, B) the need to battle to protect your “own”.
Thus we recognize and value instinctively the “good” resultes. Football/soccer recognizes agility and sense for where the game will run to get away.
Similar analogies will apply to other sports. That the sport becmes modified far from its original purpose of chase is of course a result of our social evolutional height over the millenia.
Mike S.,
I enjoyed your discussion concerning organized baseball growing up. Even back in my day, some of the parents pushed the kids too hard. I enjoyed the sports that I played in grade school and high school and beyond and I learned some lessons along the way. I was also into softball, but my game in the Chicago area was 16 inch softball! I still miss it. However, even though I love getting after the refs and umpires, I tried not to push my kids too hard.
Blouise, I was thinking, myself, “I wonder if I could find that book.” It was written 25 years ago in another state, and it was about ten pages of 8-1/2″ X 11″ paper folded over and stapled, and it is possible that it still exists. But my papers (not just those, which I call “primary documents,” but all my papers including a current lawsuit I brought to sue lawyers who actually entered into agreements with my adversaries behind my back) are in quite a terrible mess. I just returned from the West Coast (to the East) where I went to visit my friend and get her settled into a hospice; she died before that could happen, though. Then I quickly and obsessively (had to finish fast, had to provide papers to executrix of her estate, etc.) ran through all her papers, and met my deadlines, and my hands were all cracked from handling paper all day (the acid? the dust?) and on the plane flying home, I had the sudden realization that I need to go through all my papers so nobody needs to do this if I get hit by a truck (or god strikes me with lightening for being bad).
I’m going to start on the paperwork project this weekend. I’m blogging now to keep myself from going there; how I dread most of it. Finding my son’s book would be a bright spot, though. I will try.
It is gratifying that you are interested in it, thank you. I’m going to ask him if he remembers it well. The plot was simply that a boy his age (with some made up name) wanted the prize, competed for it, didn’t win it, and then had to settle himself down and not get overly upset because of the “loss” — and he managed to do it by agreeing with himself that he had not LOST anything because he didn’t HAVE the prize to start with and all that happened was that he didn’t get what he wanted. He adjusted by arguing with himself, CBT-style, that he DID like the contest itself, and that he DID like doing whatever it was the contest involved (racing or jumping or something else, who knows?) and that he DID like himself for doing it, so the value of the prize became less and less as he assigned more value to other things.
MikeS,
“…guess what, most of those I play with are significantly better than me. So what, it’s still fun for me.”
Your competitors are the elite of the elite. Those who were outstanding, have probably done it in the years since, and who have kept the form and had the health breaks. That explains that—-perhaps.
Another great article Mike!
I saw a piece on the TV news talking about a study which showed that, in general, bronze medalists were much happier with their medal that silver medalists—Those that got the silver tended to think about how close they’d come to gold and those that got the bronze tended to think about how close they’d come to nothing (although, as your article shows, just being a part of the olympics is a pretty impressive achievement on its own).
Personally, I think that if you set goals that are important to you (too often we can get caught up in other peoples expectations and goals) and do your utmost to attain them then, succeed or fail, you’ll have nothing to regret.
Malisha,
Now I have read yours. Yes, I forgot sex. How could I after a course in evolutional biology. I wrote recently on Bower birds competing for mates by creating the most attractive nest. One example.
As for testerone, women have it too, just not as much.
Thank god for that, or perhaps not.
Is it unnatural as some contend that women chase men.
I think not. The chasing has always occurred from both sides, but visibly it may have appeared to be a
man’s role to chase.
And here where the girls do, makes for their deciding consciously what they are looking for and taking responsibility for it, and not just any mate will do.
But who am I to opine. I am but an observer, after years of fumbling.
Great son you have. Be proud. Must be a great mom behind.
Malisha,
If you can’t find it, ask him to rewrite it as a children’s book for publication. It could be a great teaching tool and depending on the setting, quite an adventure.
Malisha,
“…..and that he DID like himself for doing it, so the value of the prize became less and less as he assigned more value to other things.”
thanks for the CBT lesson.
Yeah, I’ll speak with him about it this evening. Maybe he should rewrite it simply to save his mom from the frustration of trying to find something else that is missing…good incentive.
Malisha,
My condolences for the death of your friend. I wondered where you were and am sorry to hear that you were busy with such sadness.
Slarti, that study made me think, and made me laugh.
Recently I was speaking with a virtual stranger (over the phone) and he suddenly asked me WHY I had tried to help someone who had no call on my sympathy. He and I got into a talk about it! I said I always felt that I had so much more than others, why shouldn’t I try to help others? He was kind of astounded because he knew that, on the cold record, I had approximately nothing. Then I discovered, and simultaneously explained, that I was what I call a “post-Holocaust Jew” who was raised on stories of the destruction of the Jews of Europe. I always thought I had enough because I had food, shelter, clothing, and nobody burning me, beating me, gassing me, killing me. No matter what I had or lacked, I was so much better off than I would have been, had I been born ten years earlier in a different place.
But I never tried to accumulate wealth or “get ahead” in life and I realized that by comparing myself to people who had nothing, I felt already-rich. Others my age compared themselves to people who had EVERYTHING (seen on TV) and they were always striving to get as much!
It’s kind of a joke, at this point in time — I’m 65. Had I always compared myself with the wealthy and powerful on TV rather than the nameless folks in mass graves in Poland, how much different things might be now!
Malisha said: “Slarti, that study made me think, and made me laugh.”
According to Jimmy Valvano (giving his final speech at the inaugural ESPY awards), if you think, you laugh, and you cry in a day, you’ve had a full day—you’re two-thirds of the way there (and I’m honored that I could help).
I have the good fortune of having a friend that, like you, manages to help other people even though most would say he has very little himself. Part of what drives me to succeed is the desire to validate his faith in me and, in some small measure, repay the help he’s given me. I’m sure there are many people who feel the same about you…
Remember, we’ll all be successful if we remember 3 things: Our families, our religion, and the Green Bay Packers*.
* if you don’t get the reference, watch the linked speech starting at about 3:20… No, scratch that, watch the whole thing.
Malisha, I have so much, I am content with the little I have.
Your comments today are awing and wonderful. Thank you
Mike Spindell, thanks again for another beautiful column.
Slarti, I already had my full day (my friend died recently). So I think I’ll go to sleep now! Thanks for the lullabye!
Idealist, I had never even HEARD of CBT when my kid wrote that book! And later when I did read about CBT, I didn’t actually think about that book or about his experiences with the prize (by the way it was a stuffed doggie and my kid already had about a dozen stuffed animals on his bed) when I read about it. The link only appeared now!
Blouise, thanks for your condolences. People out there treated me as one of the mourners although I’m not related to her. There were lots of quasi-religious services (Marjorie wasn’t completely sure whether she was Jewish or Buddhist or both, and there was an interesting mix). My habit is to sit/stand in the back row and move my lips as if I remember the Hebrew, but in this case I got moved into the front row all the time so I couldn’t “fake” it any more and had to just stand still and look ignorant. It made me laugh to realize that, as a result of the honor, I wasn’t able to be pretentious at my friend’s services! She would also have laughed at that.
We dogs chase the ball for ya, point at the birdies, catch the frisbee. But when we want to show you the spirit of sport and bring you down to earth and behold dog, we chase our tails.
The Willard meanwhile, has a spouse over there, trying to be a countess or a countessa, with her show horse. This just goes to show that The Willard chased the wrong tail early in life and we might be barking up the wrong tree putting Willard and Miss Horseplay on our proverbial throne.
Every day I bury myself in my favorite sport. Besides writing random comments on various forums that could probably be best left stuck in my head, my only hobby for the last twenty six years has been boxing. Often, I revel in my glory years, when I was still boxing competitively, and was in terrific physical shape. My amateur record, was, uh, not stellar, to say the least. I competed in the heavyweight class from age fifteen through twenty, and had exactly three wins. I couldn’t have cared less and still care nothing for anyone who thought little of my boxing endeavors. My friends used to wonder why I put myself through the hours and hours of relentless training, dieting, and bruising when I couldn’t win. My speed was good, my power was good, my reflexes, reach, and depth perception were extremely lacking. My answer is best paraphrased by one of my favorite Neil Gaiman characters, the Leprechaun in American Gods. “Why do you want to fight me?” “For the pure unholy f*cking joy of it.” I also pointed out, usually to my brothers, that they were welcome to try their boxing skill relative to mine. They declined, for some odd reason. The glory for me was in the striving and competing, in pitting myself against people who worked as hard or harder than myself. I used to tell my brothers that the only person who could teach me how to fight were people who were better than me at fighting, so there was little point in beating someone up who couldn’t win against me. For me it was always the constant improvement. For me it’s always about the glory of the competition, not the results. I love American Football, MMA, hockey, rugby, AR football, and any other sport where the principle objective is violent domination of the opponent, and I will as happily cheer the worst team as the best, because it’s the love of the game that makes these people keep coming after it, the pure unholy f*cking joy of throwing yourself into the mix.
How athlete’s deal with not being the “best” depends a great deal on the kind of support they get from family.
I participated because I loved playing. I was also fairly good – for high school. I was competitive and winning was better than second or third, but I learned fairly early that when it came to running, I was the rabbit. Short legs just cannot compete with long legs that move as fast but cover more ground. In basketball, I was quick and adept at stealing the ball, deadly shot from outside, and got killed if I went under the basket. I wasn’t a high scorer but by stealing the ball, I messed up the opposition offense and one or two good shots from outside and the defense had to open up. I loved playing and joined a company team while in my 20′s. No one pushed me to be better in sports, but my ex told me repeatedly that I was “stupid” for playing. It was hard to go out running or playing basketball after a hard day of work when I had to put up with being “stupid”. I finally gave it up. (Bad decision – I gave up the wrong thing).
One brother was soured on sports when, in little league play, dad decided to give him a lesson how to slide better immediately after brother made the game winning hit. No congratulations for job well done, just you can do better at something that you didn’t do to perfection earlier in the game. Another brother was pushed hard to be a field goal kicker. He was very good and was offered a scholarship which he turned down. All the pushing soured him. He hung up his cleats after the last high school game and never played again. Another brother was a wrestler and good enough to win at the high school state level. He was self-driven and completely ignored. No one from the family even attended his meets. Dad played baseball and football, but looked down on wrestling. I think one or two of my brothers eventually picked up golf.
So much of who we are is determined by how we are treated by our families. Athletes who compete at the most rigorous levels, and who survive intact, win or lose, must be self-driven and supported by their families, win or lose. It’s families that can help them realize that they have value in just being.
Malisha, would love to read your son’s book. He showed wisdom at a young age. I agree with Blouise – he should make it available as a published children’s book.
Reality for Olympians is probably a bit different, in evolutionary outcome terms, than for much more inactive people.
Anyone who does certain types of repetitive, intense activity changes their genes:
(Why You Can Change Your Genes). That is the opposite of orthodox genetics of not too very long ago.
It would seem, then, that those who play Olympic games intensely from young children until adulthood will change their genetic makeup.
How they play the game may in fact determine those genetic changes to some degree.
One has to wonder if warmongers will develop genetic differences when compared to people of peace.
Olympics, these days, have been politicized. For example, last year Iran objected to the official logo of Olympics. This year Israel and its lobby group tried to forceIOC president to observe one minute silence in the memory of Israeli athelete killed as result of Mossad’s false flag operation in Munich. Then a Tunisian athelete refuse to compete against Israeli athelete while a Lebanese athelet refused practice in front of Israeli team.
However, in end Iran won 8 medals and Israel none which made Israelis so made that there media has reported today the Israel will attack Iran within a few months.
http://rehmat1.com/2011/10/26/2012-london-olympics-and-mossad/
Mike asks:
As far as I am concerned that sums up the essence of the core of our two civilizations.
I am reminded of the song lyrics “caterpillar sheds its skin to find a butterfly within” (Donovan).
Like your question as to whether playing a game well is sufficient to, for instance, convert the proverbial worm into a beautiful flying work of art, the answer is still a mystery to us after all these years.
The institutions of our two civilizations rarely admit of it:
(Scientific American). Thus, I would have to say that most anything we do as a species that is composed of “eastern civilization” vs. “western civilization” evinces very poor judgment.
The reason, inter alia, is because our mutual interface is a game rather than a form of life composed of love of our fellow civilization.
Our essence is a game of exaltation rather than a mysterious yet fervent love that wants the other civilization to succeed even as we also succeed.
Obviously, this is all my personal opinion.
Nobody is perfect, nobody is flawless. Not physically, mentally, or emotionally. For me, what that means is there is no real champion or king, there are just certain moments when one executes better than any one else, and sometimes moments when you feel you have executed perfectly.
I am a decent darts player. Not even a regional champion, but once, on a $20 bet with a stranger that I could, I stepped to the line and threw a regulation bullseye in a single throw. I was with friends, and … they … roared.
I have earned many hundreds of thousands of dollars in my life, but that $20 and the roar of my friends when I nailed that shot stands out in my memory as a shining moment in my life, about a third of a century after I made it. I am not the best darts player in the world, but for one moment it felt like it.
To me Life is made of such moments, when you were successful, you were “the one.” It happens in business, in romance, in research, in parenting, in sports, in games, in spontaneous humor, and the whole reason for pursuing what you are good it is to cultivate those moments, to collect them, to celebrate them, to remember.
My nephew (and adoptive brother) is now a tournament pool player, a champion. He started playing at the age of 7. but here is his “$20 story” to match mine: At 11, he liked fishing, and one weekend I took him to the lake for that; we rented a boat, caught a few fish. After fishing we found a restaurant on the lake, and they had a pay pool table. Four local college kids were drinking beer and playing the table, and my nephew says, “gimme five dollars.” He took the five dollars to the table, played call shot 8-ball against each of them in turn, and just destroyed them, he was running four and five balls in a row. Fortunately, these boys found this all hilariously entertaining, and paid their bets. My nephew walked out with $25. Because I told him to keep the $5 I staked him with, the show was worth it.
That was a moment for him, for me, and I hope for those four boys in the bar. Life is made of such moments, and such feelings.
I think it is far easier to accept defeat if you understand that everybody, without exception, suffers defeats. Defeat and pain can (hopefully) be forgotten, to me Life is about the beautiful moments you cannot forget.
Life is not counted in the number of breaths you take, but in the moments that take your breath away.
TonyC.
Almost priceless even for us too.
First the positive or most loony depending on your view.
Some could say in their Zen world, that you had achieved, for the moment, the condition where you, the dart and the dart board were one—connected.
I wonder if proff athletes can confirm that feeling occuring. With all their hours of competing/training, it would likely be there to experience.
Sustaining it is even more of a problem. Your adopted brother’s session, a chess player’s hours long match, even the tennis players needs to enter and leave it or rather to modulate its intensity under a 5 hours match.
Some say painters do it. Some call it going with¨the flow and recount the immeasurable pleasure found there.
I have not studied it and welcome those who have and can go on with more.
But from all duffers of whatever sport we play, we have at some point, hopefully, experienced when the stroke felt incredibly solid and “right”. Haven’t we?
PS You “knew” when the dart left your hand that it would hit the bullseye. Or did you?
OT OT OT
Leaving the mystical behind us, some would say you left if over to the autonomous body to control, disengaging muscle control, just following years of training.
But this way leaves the mind out of the circuit.
Thus others would say that you left control over to a seldom used, by you and I, part of the brain to do the job for us. We thus disengage all fears, motivations, bets, glory hopes, etc and leave it to “IT” to do the job, fully engaged as it can be.
Maybe Dredd has something, or our psychotherapist. et al.
Excellent article, Mike. As you well know from previous discussions, as a child there were many lessons floating about in my environment, often expressed in favored maxims from my grandfather or other family members, that were formative such as “the only day truly wasted is the day you didn’t learn something new”. Another one of those maxims in the air was “it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but how you play the game. However, winning is certainly nice.” When I asked questions about this (as I was prone to do about everything as a child, ad nauseum for the adults I’m sure), the refining comments I got were always along the lines of “if you did better than you did yesterday or did your best without excuse or learned something new or simply did the right thing as you know it in your heart, then you have won regardless of the score”. This lesson was instrumental in shaping my later acquired understanding of Sun Tzu’s advice regarding the shape of victory changing endlessly. Victory is where you find it and what it is depends as much on what is inside you as what you do and how you do it.
Mark me down for “how you play”, without reservation.
Silver? Bronze? You made it to the rarefied air of the Olympics and the requisite levels of performance required to get and stay there.
How can you not be a success for that accomplishment alone?
Being #1 is ego gratification, but it is usually no substantively greater accomplishment than a well-played #2 spot in the long run. If you are happy with yourself and in that you did the best you could given the circumstances? Then you did well and no one can ever take that from you.
What Gene said. I have known several athletes who did not quite make the cut for the Olympic team. They were awesome in their fields, and the fact they made it to the tryouts was quite an accomplishment in my eyes. One has to be world class in their sport to even be a finalist. Medals? Meh! It is a SPORT for crying out loud. Entertainment.
It is not like developing a cure for cancer or discovering the secret of cold fusion.
So many gems here. First the article itself. Thanks, Mike.
Blouise, ” The day before the competition we asked the children about medals and they told us that everybody should get gold but the one who won each event should stand on a stool to accept his/her medal.”
Imagine, the adults asking the kids what they want. And the kids saying everyone should be recognized.
—-
Malisha’s son, “What happens when you like a prize better than you like yourself?”
Real insight at a time of disappointment.
—–
Mike S, “…guess what, most of those I play with are significantly better than me. So what, it’s still fun for me.”
I can relate. My golf game was always better (never good) when I played with those whose skill was greater than mine.
——-
Malisha, “Life is not counted in the number of breaths you take, but in the moments that take your breath away.”
——-
I can’t find it above but someone pointed out that the difference between the silver and bronze medalists is that the silver is disappointed in not getting the gold while the bronze is delighted to get a metal.
——-
And all the great stories. This is a really enjoyable thread.
BettyKath,
Slartibartfast.
My memory works as it will.
Topical, typical but atypical, temporal, turbulent, tremulous, terrific, tangential to all. Good choice.
All will make their own “best” lists. And as GeneH said; Have something newly learned for the day.
Mike, I’m new here and so let me say thanks to the selfless person who gave you a heart. Just knowing you’re a transplant recipient tells me you have an elevated sense of what is truly important, and gives me an even better understanding of this post.
You touched on a very important point when you discussed pickup games. That is almost extinct except for inner city basketball. Growing up in the 50′s/60′s for every hour of organized sport I probably played 100 hours of pickup baseball, football and basketball games. Since I loved playing[not just competing Malisha, but also playing] I was the organizer. On a personal level it required an introvert as I am to come out of my comfort zone and knock on doors getting kids to play. I got to know what kids would play in the morning, afternoon, and evening. I would play all day. It meant knowing who had a bat, balls, extra gloves, etc. It meant making new rules if there weren’t enough for two teams. It meant negotiating balls, strikes and outs w/ the opposing team since there were no umps . You quickly learned who was honest and who wasn’t. Those skills were much more valuable than athletic skills. I know they were instrumental in helping me operate my own business for over 25 years. When I coached I tried to instill this in kids. I would allow them to take the team equipment. It was a quixotic effort. Those days are gone.
The Olympic managing hero, who “did it better than London” did, would play the game thusly:
(Robert Reich, emphasis added). Social Darwinism, it’s not just for your grandpa anymore.
That is how many want to “play the game”.
Idealist707 wrote: “…Topical, typical but atypical, temporal, turbulent, tremulous, terrific, tangential to all…”
You should have joined the aliteration competition Blouise and I were having a couple of days ago—fun was had by all even if no one knows who won…
@Idealist: I did not know I would hit the bullseye; my friends knew it was no certainty either; hence their reaction when I hit it. This was my early college days; and at the moment, having just won a few games in a row against my friends, I was challenged by a stranger in the joint that irked me. Testosterone got the better of me, and led to this pretty dumb bet, on my part. But once his money was on the table, I would rather miss than back down, so… throw.
My point may not have been clear. Although I do highly value “how you play the game,” I do not think life is about that. I do think life is about those pinnacle moments, which is not exclusively moments of competition, but obviously does include winning moments.
There is a little “sleight of mind,” here, a way of thinking. I really do think the losing moments are forgettable and can be put behind us, I really do believe that our losses fade faster and fade more completely than our victories do. Because of that, I do not think of competition as being a zero-sum game, that winning is the exact opposite of losing. Because after some time, the joy of winning can still shine like new while the pain of defeat has evaporated for the losers. In any given person, after time, their bright points of victory shine and their losses will have faded into the background, lost or barely recognizable.
Read the story about my nephew. Thirty years later, his joy at beating four guys twice his age is still there, he still takes pride in it. Whatever pain or shock or embarrassment they may have felt at being defeated by a fifth grader was gone before the game was even over. If they even remember it, it is probably a memory of an unexpectedly stellar performance by a prodigy, not a memory of a personal loss.
I cannot tell you how many poker hands I have lost in Vegas, because I literally do not recall them. But I do recall some notable wins. I was once dealt two aces in the hole and an ace up in seven card stud. I once beat trip kings with a fives and threes full house. I once drew three cards to a king jack and unexpectedly filled a king high straight.
If I play the game of life unfairly, I feel like a thief, and that gives me no happiness. (Some people do take joy in thievery, and they must be guarded against.) So for me, fair play is a given, I do not want regrets or guilt, I do not want to feel like a fraud or a criminal or even a heartless greedy jerk. I am okay with losing to avoid those feelings, because (again) I know losses fade.
That said, to me it is still the pinnacle moments and wins that matter. It is still true that for wins to matter a lot, the odds of winning must be low, so the ratio of losers to winners must be high. That means the odds are that you aren’t the winner in any given round, even if the round is very important to you. But if you have the chance to take the prize you should try, because the win can last forever, and the disappointment of loss will fade relatively quickly; other pinnacle moments will overshadow it.
I think it is important to know up front that if you lose there are plenty of other moments waiting for you to collect them, no single moment has enough meaning to define you. For example, consider Michael Phelps. If his Olympic career is truly over, are all of his “moments” behind him now? I should hope not. I hope for Phelps that, in his mind, he has victories and moments even more important to him than what he has accomplished in the Olympics. it may be business success, romantic success, parental success, the specifics do not matter, but I would hope that any Olympian does not spend their life reveling in their past, and does not spend their life regretting their biggest losses.
The same goes for anybody, in fact. Polish your trophies (literally or metaphorically), forget (or at least get over) your losses and be happy. Then ante up, there is another awesome hand waiting for you.
(Posted a second time to avoid moderation).
“Blouise and I were having a couple of days ago—fun was had by all even if no one knows who won… ” (slarti)
Blouise booted brat’s butt.
Blouise,
If you’re going to play the sock puppet game, you’ve got to change your avatar…
This Swamp is full of holes, snakes, frogs, and I lost my compass. At least no fear of meeting Crisco “crackers” here. My butt is safe. But what else is to be feared.
Slaert,
Alliteration? You should have heard the one I did last night on variations on re-. It was a letter on a subject, thus constrained to making sense and attaining a goal. Dear me. Not so sure I would do well in a match. Might be inhibeted by the challenge.
Try me next time.
TonyC.
Taking a chance—–that my knowing the spit would hit the spittoon, the tossed folded newspaper would hit the 3×5 porch, that the paper ball the wastepaper basket, the tennis stroke that gives a winner—–was a loser with you. You have more important talents. Mine includes intuitive “feeling” and ranking of most things: art, music as the composer meant, words as a genius would write, but emotions are still foreign ground.
Of course, only some of us experience the groove. And what the hell is that worth. Just a warm feeling and how long does that last.
Getting over losses? Some never learned that. Myself included. Working on it now. Got confirmation on one technique from Malisha’s son yesterday.
Life should be built on positive reinforcement, not just retention and potentiation of the negative.
I’ll tell sometime the story of the two year old I watched with his mamma two weeks ago. Kids are instructive to those who need to learn.
Blouise busts balls benevolently, barebreasting border to border, bouncing from belly to belly, bestrewing her glances, and buckboarding the beetle-browed Ryan-enabled attackers.
nick,
“those days” are over only if you allow them to be over. pickup games are still happening in many areas with young and old partcipating. There are more rigid and structrured sport choices now, but the neighborhood games are still happening in my neighborhood.
Idealistic intervention isn’t immediately indicated—instances of inverted intentions immanently impend.
raff,
We’re having a pickup game of alliteration as you speak… (regrets regarding remissions re: routine, raff).
Slarts,
my head is spinning, straining, stretching & snoozing!
in my neighborhood we had pick up games of baseball. Players were 6-17 or 18. The older players made sure the teams were fairly evenly matched and made sure the younger players had their good moments. Individual skills were considered in balancing the teams. No one was left out. You show up, you play. Team sizes varied depending on how many showed up. Evening play sometimes included kick the can with many of the same players. For those who haven’t played, kick the can requires one can that can easily be kicked. It’s a form of hide and seek. The person who is “it”. steps on the can to call someone out. Those caught have to wait for someone to run in and kick the can, freeing all. The older kids sometimes ended up being really slow, so slow that the little ones were able to kick the can to their great joy. Hours of fun.
Mutely, Exit.
“Someone Sounding Suspiciously Similar (to) Slarti
Blouise,
If you’re going to play the sock puppet game, you’ve got to change your avatar…”
But then you won’t know it’s me
… besides, too much work
“I really do think the losing moments are forgettable and can be put behind us” (Tony C.)
As a musician who, early on before the career was built, had to face the ordeal of auditions, believe you me, one better be able to put one’s losses away very quickly and forge ahead with confidence.
raf,
Many men make math messy misleading millions.
@Idealist: Life should be built on positive reinforcement, not just retention and potentiation of the negative.
I do not disagree; in my philosophy that is about managing your time and effort to get to the next pinnacle moment. I do something I excel at so the triumphant moments are more frequent; I encourage those I love to do the same, with emotional support and financial support if it would remove a barrier to success.
Of course, only some of us experience the groove. And what the hell is that worth. Just a warm feeling and how long does that last.
Feelings are temporary, life is temporary, the world is temporary. My entire consciousness and being are temporary, and the same is true of everyone that I have ever shared the planet with. If permanence is the only measure of worth, then nothing is worth anything, absolutely everything is empty and devoid of meaning.
And yet, I have no urge to end my existence, or end my participation in life. I dread the thought of my friends or family members dying. Clearly I must see enormous value in all of these temporary things. For that reason, I reject the idea that permanence is a necessary component of value, I reject the idea that only an infinite existence can be worth living, and I embrace the idea that life is worth living even if it is finite, that warm feelings are valuable even if they pass, that love is worth having even if it is destined to end.
Feelings are everything, in my opinion. Our intellect and intelligence are mere tools that exist to serve the emotional self. The finite nature of my life no longer bothers me at all. I feel I have made the world a better place by being here, I have helped others in need, protected those that were threatened, punished criminals, added to the knowledge of the world, entertained my friends and family, and I have helped others to achieve their own dreams of success.
I probably have no sage advice on getting over losses or failures. For me, at least, the key was to investigate why I thought the win was so important in the first place, and to understand my own feelings about what failing meant about me and my self-image. That might be a place to start.
“Of course, only some of us experience the groove. And what the hell is that worth. Just a warm feeling and how long does that last.
A rush to self-denigrate before others do it first.
I had written many sentences, but a push of a button cancelled it all.
Perhaps best so.
Good advice you give, and good progress is made.
But when you think it is going good, and you are rising, then the cold shower comes. But I am irrepressible, as some regretted to find in grammar school.
Let us remember Buddhas final words.
And mine for now. Let silence spread its balm over the noise of bad ideas.
Lacking better I do the mystic act. Smile. Self-irony tastes good.
I missed taking away two of the three urls. My bad.
OT OT OT
I need no more attention.
But need to test the moderation barrier I encountered at the algonquin. thus the crosspost.
————————–
12 idealist707
1, August 12, 2012 at 3:54 pm
OT OT OT
ARE TIMES CHANGING??
read this OT notice and translate for me. Incomprehensible.
“Send us your robocalls!
We know you hate robocalls (those pre-recorded voice messages, often for political campaigns, that clog your voicemail) – you write us emails every day telling us so. Let’s expose them together. — You can email us voicemails of your #robocall:uuuuuuuu Or, upload your #robocall to SoundCloud. Or, tag it #robocall on Tumblr. — You’ll need a voice memo app on your phone so that you can record the message (left on a landline voicemail), or you can forward the robocall by emailing it to us directly from your phone. — Questions and thoughts? Email usuuuuuuurl We’ll make supercuts with the best of your robocalls in coming weeks.”
———————————-
When does the next pathological government edict read like that?
Heaven help us. Technology won’t.
Do you feel persecuted by technology? Sometimes? I love tech, even biology tech, etc. But not our uses of it.
I am contemplating purchase of a smartphone. The 15 year old one ericsson K750i, I inherited from my Kerstin has it all except zoom screen and touch screen. Even optical zoom. It won’t talk to me but I can swear at it. So why buy? Being in touch with the times. Certainly not competing with my age group. Of course I love reading 164 page instruction manuals on the web. The army taught me that.
Is media increasing the noise coefficient and driving us in the consumer herd to an unkind fate? Waiting for the boot out of the comfy hotel of society? Here comes Ryan with his health inspectors.
Think that’s bad, try this. A re-post. Social darwinism Ryan style. A hundred and thirty years backwards in time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/paul-ryan-social-darwinism_b_1769827.html
OT OT
thinking of John D. and now the red necks vs the darkies. (quaint language we have)
When you are at the bottom and starving, you don’t need any competition for the bottom rung up.
Last and then to bed.
Thanks Raff. Arpaio is just the kind of guy I like to hate. He even looks evil. And a good hate was had by all. 1984, one day closer.
Idealist, all I could find on the web regarding Buddha’s last words was this:
“The discipline which I have imparted to you will lead you when I am gone. Practice to attain the goal of enlightenment and awakening.”
OR:
All compounded things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence!
OR:
Anan, Anan, be a light unto yourself.
OR:
Well now, bhikkhus, my counsel is: experience is disappointing, [it is] through vigilance [that] you succeed.
OR:
Monks,
I know of no other single thing of such power
to cause the arising of wholesome states,
if not yet arisen,
or to cause the waning of unwholesome states,
if already arisen,
as appamada, “care.”
There seem to be others. Which ones were you referring to?
JC!, wrong thread again!
bettykath, You just described my neighborhood in Terryville, Ct., right down to kick the can! I had an older mentor for those pickup games. He was a local sports hero named Chuck Manarel. He looked out for me. My first real experience w/ death was when Chuck got killed in Viet Nam.
Malisha,
I quoted them once and got corrected by another commenter. How did he know that his source was better than mine. lawyers!
“Strive on.” plus a bit more. Help, those who know.
Am currrently reading page 35 of Samsung S 3 manual. How people think and describe things. an eternal subject.
This would seem to match very well my recollection:
“All compounded things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence!”
“Mike, I’m new here and so let me say thanks to the selfless person who gave you a heart.”
Nick,
Thank you. I share those sentiments about my donor and his family who have give me a longer life. You are correct it has changed my perspective on life to a great degree, especially heightening my already heightened sense of responsibility to work to heal the world.
Regarding the idea of pick up games and children learning to regulate their own play, I think that children today miss something by having their competitive play regulated by adults. I find it interesting that those of the “boomer” generation have become extremely controlling parents to the point where the affluent ones stand for having their children adjudged for pre-school. When I hear a parent of a Olympic athlete interviewed and saying that their child decide at age four that swimming (for instance) was their dream, I become quite skeptical as to whose dream is really being fulfilled. With my kids I’ve always felt that my job was to help them learn to make their own choices, rather than fulfill my expectations.
Excellent article and thread.
Mike S. wrote about myths a while back, so I am reminded of one of the myths of “human nature”, which is that human nature is fundamentally violent under the covers.
I have also read somewhere that the Olympics are one attempt for nations to neutralize that violent nature by way of playing fair together rather than shooting it out, so to speak.
There are some indications that this notion of a violent human nature is a myth:
(Diagnosing The Dogs of War). It has even been said that violence is in our genes, which is another myth:
(The “It’s In Your Genes” Myth). The reality, according to this research and discourse, is that violence is learned behavior.
So is “how we play the game”.
And sports are an important pedagogic system, teaching socialization, at a critical age in childrens’ lives.
And, besides the enjoyment/motivation which sports provide to adult “players”, there is the reinforcement of socialing effects feven for adults.
Pehhaps I should take up that invitation to play badminton.
But one backstop basketball, susper-senior league, would provide a wider apectrum of contacts and a slower pace for my heart……
Let’s see if I can take my walk today. Got to get in form. Maybe should see if they have a “pickup games” place for basketball seniors.
Idealist, there’s also Tai Chi in the park, if you have white clothes!
Malisha,
Never tried it. Failed at free dance at 48. So chose other ways.
But qi gong is nice. No uniforms, no grace necessary, simple non-rythmic movements. No challenging transverse movements for the balance and elderly body to attain.
Only the ability to feel your stomach falling onto the floor. Took me 3 weeks,and another said enviously “it took me 6 months”. That mystery remains for you to experience. Many such things with qi gong can be described as waves through the body. That released in an arroyo by a sudden shower high in the terrain above.
Ocean waves are completely different, but I leave that for another time.
Definitely recommend it. Will ring today to see when fall program starts. Given at nominal charge by the Heart-lung charity here.
@Dredd: The reality, according to [my own flawed research and my own discourse with myself] is that violence is learned behavior.
That is ludicrous. Put just about any two animals in a cage, provide them only enough food for one, and watch them engage in violence over who gets to eat.
The last brain part to evolve in humans is the frontal cortex that is the seat of rationality, including our projections and visualizations of the future. We know this by studying people that have had their frontal cortex damaged by disease or accident.
What evolved first, and exists in our ape cousins with much less frontal cortex in a form much like our own, is an emotion-based processing system capable of sorting out conflicting emotions quickly, but evolved for survival in a brutal and lawless world of predators, aggression, and achieving one’s desires by force.
Those emotions are not learned, if anything we must learn to suppress them. The emotions of anger, jealousy and blind rage that lead to violent attack (or defense) all exist to protect you. In the brutal and lawless world, these emotions pay off in terms of survival and the reproduction of one’s genes.
Also, toddlers engage in violence and aggression; very few parents teach their kid to push another kid over or hit another kid to get their way, they engage in that behavior without ever having seen it.
Violence is not learned at all, physical coercion and physical punishment are the natural currency of the wild world from whence we came, and we all do indeed still feel those urges to engage physically when words fail.
However, modern humans now have a well developed frontal cortex that can “see” the future, and although that does not eliminate our urges, or even suppress them, what it can do is show the emotional mind scenes of what logically transpires next, the consequences of indulging in violence. It is the emotions those consequences evoke (fear, dislike, remorse, despair) that can outweigh the emotions of the moment.
In other words, the rational mind convinces the emotional mind to suppress itself by using conflicting emotions; which the emotional mind is good at sorting out.
In the study of those imprisoned for violent acts, researchers have observed exactly this phenomenon, a deficit in their ability to imagine realistic consequences of various acts, including violent acts.
Violence is not learned. Neither is “how we play the game,” for the most part, our sense of “fair play” (within our tribe) is also observable in primates, and they will also throw away profit they could have had in order to punish primate partners they think are being unfair (just as humans do). Which means the “fair play” judgmental mechanism and the urge to punish cheating or greediness or selfishness was probably in our common ancestor, and has always been with our species.
Those exact urges are what we use as a society to determine how the “game” should be played, to determine if an individual has played the game “well” or “badly.” Did they cheat? Were they greedy? Were they selfish? Were they fair?
Just came back.
“In the study of those imprisoned for violent acts, researchers have observed exactly this phenomenon, a deficit in their ability to imagine realistic consequences of various acts, including violent acts.”
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Yes indeedy.
When you lack something it is not easy to see that lack.
But you sure as hell can experience the consequences.
Does it teach you? Sometimes.
@Idealist: The prisoner’s persistent mental deficit was in understanding the consequences of their violent actions; so the hypothesis is that they gave in to their urge to commit violence because in the moment, their frontal cortex failed to report the negative outcomes of that act. Since they still had the deficit in prison, presumably that deficit was a lifelong mental feature (or disability) that contributed to them ending up in prison over their impulsive behavior, in particular their impulsive violence.
TonyC.
Do those that did that study,or others since, reach any conclusion as to the causes of this deficit: genetic, epigenetic, foetal development, social during childhood, etc.?
I ask this although I am aware that many studies would have to be made over many years to answer that question. It is just my way of summarizing possible causes. Your guess?
@Idealist: Not to my knowledge, they didn’t. It is far easier to document a deficit (a symptom) than to propose a cause. However, my pure speculation is that a genetic cause for such crimes would have been statistically documented long ago, via the criminal records of siblings, parents and children, showing a heritable trend. I have not heard of any such links being documented; and it would seem like low-hanging fruit for studies. Perhaps Mike Spindell would know something about this.
So although I know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, I would lean toward things like random birth defects producing developmental problems, or nutritional problems, accidental injury or oxygen starvation, or environmental toxins causing brain damage.
I suppose in such cases one might argue they deserve some slack for having a mental disability, but I think the opposite is true. It is likely their particular mental disability cannot be corrected and this suggests they need to be segregated from society and direct human contact for life, they are an impulsive danger to others. But perhaps a diagnosis of disability would speak for a less punitive lifetime of incarceration.
TonyC.,
I come back not with contradiction but added emphasis.
I note that of the factors I mentioned you did not take up the one of social guidance or whatever you wish to call it. I am no expert of course.
I was looking for the neglected, unloved, unguided child who never had a model, not even from contempories, nor neighbor families.
How it ends up for any child involves too many factors to draw conclusions. But epidemiological studies of suspected and control groups might give some weight to further study of the selected group.
For example. Rumanian orphans in their child homes staring at the ceiling. There must have been predecessor groups who are adults today.
You conclude that they are eternally damned to recidivism. You have presumably info to stand on and will accept that for now.
@Idealist: I do not have info to stand on; other than the fact that the prisoners studied, while in prison, still exhibit their deficit in predicting realistic consequences of various actions, including violent actions. (By “realistic,” I believe what is meant is what a typical control group predicts.)
I am sure a child caged like an animal will have mental deficits too, but I would not hold out much hope for such people. Some things must be learned while the brain is still in a particular developmental phase, and cannot be taught after the fact.
@Idealist: P.S. I speculate they are eternally damned to recidivism because I speculate that their deficit has a physical manifestation, not a learned one. I speculate that because they are in prison for a violent crime; everybody growing up in America has plenty of opportunity to learn there are very severe consequences for using violence, including being sentenced to prison for life or long chunks of it. Since these people are in prison for using violence, I assume they did not learn that lesson because their psychological deficit makes them incapable of learning that lesson.
TonyC,
Thanks for the facts, I think they are convincing. Thankful that that is not my fate.
But maybe some assume, like we did before with other “less than normals” like blacks slaves and retarded children, that they don’t suffer like we normals do.
An OT comment. Sorry I have impulse control problems too. smile. But am finding where the impulses are coming from, which helps a lot. If the fear source is raassured, impulsive searchs for reassurance with inappropriate actions will cease of themselves. Found that today on my walk. Fresh stuff. My impulses result in contact searching, not violence. Smile.
Your coverage is quite broad. And your formulations stupendous at times. “Lack of evidence does not prove…..”
See you later.