I am watching a semi pro football game. A player who caught a pass turned to his opponent, in hot pursuit to tackle him, and lifted his arm and extended his middle finger towards him before successfully evading him. Pro sports, testosterone fueled athletes caught up in the heat of competition, maybe there is “bad blood” between the teams…whatever. Just that easily, he said “Fuck you” to the other player. He is not representative of all athletes, there are many respectful, professional men and women playing at all different levels. What struck me in his action was the human-ness of it – the split second decision to react negatively and with anger to another person. The person I refuse to let into my lane when I’m driving because I feel like being an a*shole, the customer service representative I insult and treat poorly during a phone call about a defective product, the humans I ridicule, scorn and judge for not being like me, who might share opposing religious or political ideologies. Granted, we are a selfish species, we must be in order to survive, and kindness…goodness…decency…are the exception, not the rule. So…why is this? Are we creations of a deity we want to believe is good, gentle, and loving, yet in reality is a savage, ruthless ogre feeding on our suffering? Are we evolved single cell organisms with oversized brains, concerned primarily with our own survival, responding to a genetic code in our DNA that shuns kindness, because kindness is weakness, and weakness is vulnerability and oh shame shame shame, can’t show kindness lest we reveal our weakness…
This planet needs an enema. We’re so over rated.
Is this universe nothing more than a lab, where a creative force tests various processes and methods? Is that it? Who knows. We’re full of it, so to speak. Sigh.
2 comments
We are overrated indeed. Like I’ve said many times, our pseudo civilization is the result of survival centric apes developing agriculture and trade as a result of a minute intelligence without a stitch of real imagination.
We have achieved nothing so long as we have to survive like animals, and we do with having to pay bills. Throw in our technology and environmental impact and we have achieved infact, an inverse result, negative progress, literally less than nothing and are as such, with our need of technology, to do exactly the same as animals do without it, the lowest species on this planet.
athletes are entertainers, and they seem to get more respect than other genres in some circles. Heck, I know that I don’t have the lung capacity to be a professional athlete, but I didn’t even want to try, my knees were worth more to me than the promise of maybe throwing a ball better than some other guy.
Maybe if I could go back I’d take a run at it, metaphorically and literally.
as a species? we’re abnormally obsessed with people pushing the limits of their bodies, which is cool I guess. On average we’re all sub par, it’s just in which way, and is that a way that you value?
there’s nothing to value, in my rulebook. All is absurd and pointless, we are merely trying to lessen each other’s pain on our one way path to the grave. If saying “fuck you” does that for a guy, I say good on him.