Take Two for Sport

One of the few things my brother has ever said that stank of quoteworthiness is this:

Sports important because it is unimportant ~ Old man Sam

And tomorrow in the lead up to the Grand Finale of AFL's season, one of my two favorite sports in the whole world...

I don't know what I'm saying.

Okay 1. This week is the week that precedes the AFL Grand Final. AND 2. Now might be the time to reflect on what sport can teach me about life.

Yes, sport is pointless. As captured in the wonderfully instructive Catch-22:

To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else. ~ Catch-22 OR tohm's New Testament

You know, last year after watching what must be remembered eternally as one of the most boring Grand Finals in AFL history as Geelong mercilessly crushed Port Power into the drought crunchy ground of the MCG, we saw flashed before us (and 15 minutes before the end of the match) footage of Billy Brownless in tears as he waited for the siren to confirm the dream of a lifetime.

The match was brutal and after 1st Quarter Time more or less a foregone conclusion. Excitement could muster around the only real question left in the game 'who would get the norm smith medal?' For the emotional outsider, like me. Some slight sense of relief to see a Victorian club win the Cup back was overwhelmed by a large amount of not giving a shit.

It's matches like those that can have me praying to a divine being to intervene and make the losing side competitive that there may be a reason to continue watching.

To someone emotionally involved it is riveting to watch Geelong beat a dead horse to death.

In the context of the game, such emotions are reasonable, expected no less. It is the most satisfying validation of your support, of a team regardless of what form it takes that finally for just one day, one minute of one day you can hold the cup aloft and say 'We are champions, the best team there is!'

And that's the whole point. The point of sport is to win, within the confines of the rules.

Okay another perspective, some kid who watches his family die due to polio gets a fire lit inside him, a burning desire to one day become a doctor. A doctor that saves lives. The kid works and works, studies, overcomes adversity, and one day at the age of 71 is presented with a lovely dinner by their medical colleagues and some nice things are said about their dedication to the health profession, causing this now old kid to break down in tears.

Conversely:

Micheal Jordan goes to camp, realises he has a distinct combination of athleticism, basketball IQ and mental tenacity that could make him a champion. He goes to college (to play basketball) works out for a bunch of teams and gets drafted at No. 3 to Chicago Bulls franchise.
For a few seasons despite being the most explosive player in the league, he gets bounced out of the finals repeatedly to his frustration.
The Chicago Bull's manager combines to give Jordan Scottie Pippen as a versatile swingman team mate and Phil Jackson as coach.
He finally wins his first Championship and breaks down in tears.

Okay, one could make the case that Jordan did a lot for the world, certainly a lot for Nike Athletic footware, but did he save lives? Only with the ridiculous amounts of money thrown at sports stars, this is kind of an 'aren't we lucky that when we overpay people to do something of no real benefit to anyone, they give some money back' sort of mentality.
Yes in our own way there is a little Jordan in all of us, pushing us to be the best whatever it is we can be. But by and by, its just a trophy, for playing

A GAME

That people are paid millions to play. Yes ultimately sport is entertainment, its unpredictability more subtle and infinite than the best scripts or plots our most creative minds can concieve of.

The point is, in both the case of Geelong, Jordan and all the other manifestations of sports ultimate payload why has our society produced this? Why do they care so much? Why do they consider their lives well spent? Why when they get that trophy do they break down and cry?

I like to think, its because we all have the ability to give our own lives meaning. And that sports people, especially elite sports people just give themselves a meaning that is actually attainable, where most of us don't.

So now let's look at this beautiful concept in the context of doctor kid. Because this is what nihilisticly occurred to me the other day. Say you define yourself in terms of saving lives.

What lives? Who's lives?

If we take it that the most worthwhile thing to do with your life is to be a doctor and save lives, what's left for the lives being saved? That's what I can't comprehend.

If you save the life of someone who's life serves no purpose. Like somebody who manufactures upmarket napkin rings for example... what's the point? Have you actually done anything for anybody?

You see, what I'm saying? To validate the doctors existence, society must have a greater purpose from which saving people on average allows others/the community to pursue its purpose.

If not, then what of it, in my view the Doctor is just a slightly convoluted construct of the same purposelessness, like a CDO in the Subprime mortgage crisis.

Take a bunch of pointless people, then add a level above them of someone who preserves the life of pointless people and rate them AAA.

I'm not having a dig at doctors.

I guess the only recourse I can come up with, until I can somehow comprehend why society needs so many people, so many more people than was necessary before economies of scale, mass production and efficiency was invented.

Anyway my recourse is that life, certainly at least for me, is an intrinsically enjoyable process. And its things like sport, and flavour that give life the enjoyable flavor.

Our pleasure spots are just geared up for living. And living therefore is preferable to being dead.

There you go, there's room for sport and for doctors.