Imagine you’re playing a game of baseball. Every time you get a hit, the umpire punches you in the face and tells you you’re out. Then he humiliates you in front of the crowd, and they all throw eggs at you. The umpire says “those are the rules.” You tell him those are shitty rules, and then he steals your money and kicks your dog. And he says “that’s the rule for people who complain about the rules.” The crowd keeps throwing eggs.
Anyone with an ounce of self respect would quit the game and walk off the field, right? So why the fuck am I still playing this stupid game?
8 comments
Feel the same as you. Shit sucks out here and it ain’t gonna change. Life really isn’t worth it. Took me 30 years to finally realize this without a shadow of a doubt. But yet here I am and I strongly doubt that I’ll be here too much longer. Not quite ready to end it all, but soon enough I’m sure. Good luck to you.
Well said. I’m feeling the same way. I’m about ready to walk off the field for good.
Obviously, in a scenario like that, since nothing outside the game of baseball exists, you mercilessly brutalize the umpire, punishing him for his willing perpetuation of the unfair system, as he clearly deserves. I mean, you’re holding a bat, and he isn’t. Why not? 😀
The problem is that life isn’t baseball. Life isn’t a contrived game that takes place inside another larger reality. You can quit a sport and go do something else. If you quit life, that’s it. There isn’t anything else go home to. The stakes of “quitting life” are far higher than quitting a game or changing careers.
In the situation you described, the only reason walking off the field is an option, is because once you’re off the field, your “ounce of self respect” still matters, and stays with you in other pursuits. In life, this is all there is, and so there is no way to carry your “ounce of self-respect” with you, outside of this life, and then later reflect on how you’re proud of yourself for not harming those who treated you unfairly.
In fact… in the scenario you described, the protagonist is a willing participant to an unfair game, the unfair rules of which, are previously known, before voluntary participation.
In life… we simply arrive, inexplicably, into a set of rules to which none of us agreed, beforehand. Nothing exists but the stadium. If you don’t swing, everyone hates you even more than they do if you swing and miss. In life, you can’t just leave… and so anyone with an ounce of self-respect, would not allow an unfair rule set to perpetuate, and would not allow an enforcer of those unfair rules, to beat them repeatedly, just for attempting to mesh with the game. Instead, any self-respecting person… /with an ounce of courage/, would retaliate and viciously injure that umpire, no matter what “rules” he’s using as an unacceptable excuse to enforce things that should obviously not be enforced.
But most people just take the beating, and keep swinging at what can’t be hit, and keep acting like it’s okay to play games that are designed in ways that make sure we can’t win. And then the game ends, and there’s nothing else but a meaningless record of how we failed to change the rules, and were repeatedly beaten by the system that was designed to do just that.
I don’t want to say it’s a bad analogy, though i disagree with what i think motivated it. It raises some interesting points, though.
i agree with clevername, you cant really compare life to a baseball game or whichever game for that matter.
but still agree with you, about the rules of the society, they dont match with me…
You guys are right, if you walk off the field there is presumably something for you outside the stadium. But maybe not? If baseball is the only thing you know how to do, and it’s the only thing you’ve ever done, then maybe the analogy still holds water. Quitting the only thing you’ve ever known (whether it’s baseball or family or religion, etc) takes a lot of guts, and there’s no guarantee that there’s anything out there for you. But yeah, life usually has other options. I don’t think the same can be said of death.
I guess the analogy was more about the asshole umpires we encounter. People who have power over us always hurt us. Just like a corrupt game of baseball, life is unjust. The more you fight it, the more it beats you. I sure would like to pummel that umpire senseless, but I know a bigger umpire always takes his place. And the crowd rips you apart.
There is really no practical way of walking off the field of life without dying. Maybe in Thoreau’s time you could head off into the woods, but if you try that now somebody will arrest you for trespassing, and the IRS would hunt you down for not paying taxes and the dept of homeland security would arrest you for being a terrorist.
I’d love to walk off the “field”, but there’s nowhere else to go… The entire planet has become a huge baseball field. The only viable alternative to human society is stone cold death.
Exactly.
Either way, the result is the same: you don’t win the baseball game, and you die in the end. That’s why i often struggle to find a reason NOT to retaliate against the unfair umpires. Rather than suffering whatever lesser life may exist beyond the stadium… why not just confront the (one aspect of) the problem head-on, right away, instead of sorrowfully accepting defeat by design, and allowing it to perpetuate?
This is redpill/bluepill territory i think. You either see the matrix and fight it, or you try to reintegrate. I want a purple pill that allows me to dismantle the matrix from within, without giving up the comfort of blue-pill-integration. Or maybe a green pill, where i don’t have to fight OR perpetuate the matrix… but can exist comfortably and fulfilled outside of it.
I would punch the umpire and flip off the people before I walk off the field.