Vested Interests
Today I went to watch my brother play football. I stood with the parents of the other boys, cheering Rory and his team on. I watched with interest, and yet I also watched my thoughts. I noticed the way I was subtly rooting for each man of his team to do well, and each man of the other team to not do as well. When our team had the ball, it was good, when the other did, it was bad. Yes, there was a sense of camraderie, but I couldn’t help notice how this split the game into good and bad, us and them. As a supporter of one team (and perhaps one player more than most), my very perceptions were skewed. I did not see the game as an outsider might, I did not see the game as an impartial referee should, I saw the game from my identification with my brother and his team. His victory was my victory, his defeat my defeat. And so I was completely at the mercy of the event unfolding for my happiness or lack of it.
We can apply these same issues to anything in life. We are all supporters of something or someone. And as we support these things, we identify with them, our interests become vested in the outcome of those things. We have preferences, and those preferences cause us to see the things we want, and not see much of anything else. We become narrow-minded, and mistaking what we want for who we are, our happiness and sense of well-being rest entirely on whether we get what we want or not.
So ask yourself these questions: How can you be a supporter and at the same time not give the power of happiness away to external circumstance? How can you see the game as it is and not how you think it is if you have a vested interest in the outcome? And if you don’t put anything above anything else in terms of importance, does that make you truly human, or no longer human at all?
February 26th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Ahhh I’ve given lots of thought about that as well bud, as my family followed the Olympics skating competitions (It’s a Dutch thing). Personally, I’ve never identified with any particular athelete as much as the results, which means I may see a winner and a loser (As all games are wont to judge and divide) but no particular individual winning or losing.
In a sense it does take away the feeling of competition, but really, is that a core element of sports? We are told and reminded over and over that competition and struggle must occur, but must it? If you depersonalise the players in the game - See no faces and no names, you see the sport at it’s core in my opinion; it becomes collections of human feats, achievements and actions. In the ultimate beauty of any sport of exercise, is it not the action which is most important, rather than the performer? Is a dance not about movement rather than the names of those dancing?
Unless hot chicks are involved, in which case remembering their names is vital, as you want to google them later!
February 27th, 2006 at 12:58 am
Share the wealth bub, share the wealth.
February 27th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Aye, spot on I think. It comes back to the difference between an expert and a master, that the expert is in it purely for how good he can get, while the master is in it for the training. The expert seeks to be good as a means to an end (winning a competition, being the best as a matter of personal importance) while the master devotes his life to the training, to the art of doing what he is doing, and in a sense, a good day or a bad day makes no difference. It’s the difference between time/future orientated performance and now-performance, the difference between the journey as the focus and the destination as the focus.