Warning: Everything I say below is my opinion, and my opinion only. I am not attempting to advocate this opinion whatsoever. If you disagree, then you disagree. That's your choice.
I watched a basketball game yesterday.
Almost every student in my school came to watch, because the game was during school.
Our school is pretty small, so everyone can fit in the bleachers of our gym.
Our team did really well, and I only knew that by looking at the scoreboards. I was completely amazed to see that only after two goals- ummm, do you call them goals in basketball? Or do you say hoops?- the score was 2-2. And in the middle of the game, our score jumped from 39 to 41 suddenly.
Until I remembered that for every goal- hoop, whatever- you can get more than one point, depending on how far away you are. But for me, keeping track would be confusing.
Actions in sports like basketball don't make much sense to me.
Numbers do.
Thank goodness for scoreboards, or I would be completely lost.
The game lasted almost an hour and a half, and my opinion about it was mixed. I wanted to support our team, because they're from my school, and it's a human tendency to want to support those that you have things in common with. However, I'm not much into sports at all. I don't dislike sports, I just don't really care.
As you can probably tell, I'm a nuisance at sports. I can't throw a ball and have it reach its destination. I'm okay at catching, but in most sports, if you want to play it, you have to be more than okay.
I'm mediocre at tennis. I can't serve, though.
Why do people play sports? Why are people so negative against the other team that they're not cheering for? Why do shouts in the stadium- is that what it's called? A basketball stadium? Or is that football? Ugh, I'm clueless- include "BOO!" and "MISS!"?
It's probably because we have a strong will to win at all costs, no matter what. We want to feel good, and in order to do that, we think that our opponents need to feel bad. We win, they fail.
Our feelings should not affect whether we do well or not. We should just be able to play sports and win if our abilities surpass our opponents.
And yet they do. Our feelings have a very strong effect, and they carry a lot of weight in the result of everything we do.
Humanity has a tendency towards feeling strong emotions. This is both a good thing and a bad thing.
It's good because feelings give us an opinion and make us unique and special, which is important. It makes us human.
It's bad because sometimes it closes off our minds to what other people think, or feel.
The bottom line? Emotions are confusing.
I love this post. Especially at the end, about feelings. The strange thing about sports is that part of the reason, in my opinion, that people like them is because of the involvement of feelings. After you've been playing tennis, for example,or just got a good workout, you feel good - physically and, most likely, emotionally. And if you don't feel good emotionally - for example, if you didn't do very well and were looked upon with disgust by your teammates - the physical happiness of sporting activity barely matters, because you don't feel very good about our appearance. So in a way, from a certain perspective (and there are many other matters to consider, so this is not at all an all-matters-taken-into-account conclusion), feelings are the very foundation of sports and the very undoing of them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like how you use the term "nuisance" to describe you in your athletic abilities ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mollie! :)
ReplyDeleteYup, I agree!