Post for the Sake of Bump

Or, to get a scantily clad (and deviously unlicensed) nurse off the top of my blog.

I just took a break from intense reading to take the dogs for a walk and post here. I'll be back on American Pastoral in a sec; it really is great, so far especially in the case of narrative structure / framing. A very slick trick he (Roth) pulls off in the first part; I'll let you read it fo' yo'self.

I'm also pondering today's Ultimate game and trying to combat my usual MO, which is to get really hyped up about any athletic contest, no matter how goofy-leagued it may be, and get all wrapped up into it only to suffer the inevitable letdown of Ultimate's less life-affirming qualities. This is probably just symptom A1A of a general tendency to overthink things and otherwise put more import into the everyday than warranted; I am still the same person who has both truly agonized over the number of minutes it was taking me to get home from work in Austin and who once stood in the street outside of a Boston pizza shop debating the merits of the joy a slice of pizza would bring me vis a vis the calories it would imbue my belly with. I am a little stupid in these matters. Okay, a lot.

But I like to instill a lot of effort / thought / import into these games, to the point where I drive down there early, almost unfailingly well before anyone else shows up. To warm up, yes, but more importantly to breathe in the empty field, to view it alone before it becomes trampled upon by a hundred goofballs in cleats. What can I say; I enjoy the solitude, and the silly pre-game banter, and the build-up of anticipation that turns an otherwise forgettable Tuesday night league game into some kind of personal monumental event.

Unfortunately, the games must inevitably start, and as started, must end. (I actually get a tinge of this same sadness when DVD players read 47:03, and the episode, be it Buffy and/or Bullock et al, is coming to a close). And given that these contests are usually NOT the stuff of myth - usually more the war of attrition of unqualified contenders - there's a big fat letdown at the end, a steady sense of "I got all riled up - for that?" You would think I could digest this repeated experience and, as a result, not get into the stupid on-field arguments I have a penchant for. You might also think that the head-banging experience - and I speak of Frank's style of headbanging , not, for example, my own seventh grade one (Pantera rules) - would cause me to drop the ritual altogether, just show up to play and have fun like the rest. Or you might think, what with the holy experience of two destroyed knees and the corresponding plunge in athletic ability, I might have dropped this activity along with my youth some time ago. Why invest so much in something doomed to disappoint, on every level?

It becomes a stupid and generic question, because its model could be brought upon anything in moments of existential despair: why code, why build, why write or do much of anything if the falling short of expectations is to be the only reward noticed. But it gets back to why Ultimate in particular, why anyone's particulars?

I worry a lot, to a stupid degree, that Ultimate serves as this entrenched self-validating mechanism for me. I am, objectively, experienced; I am still reasonably athletic enough to utilize my experience in a way to better opponents. Until, of course, I run into somebody equally experienced and more athletic, in which case it's a crap shoot. I have to fully admit that I revel more in those moments of masturbatory domination over lessers than any kind of relishing the challenge. By every sports cliche, by every moral standard of "the good" in sports, I should be more fixated on meeting my equals and appreciating their bringing out the best in me (and vice versa), but if I'm to be honest, I really just like doing cool stuff with the disc and catching goals over people.

I'm a chump, an insecure, ostentatious dork; I'm the guy who plays the sports video games on the low setting to repeatedly bash-in a stupid computer opponent, all for the glory of the lever-push win-thrill. Wanting respect, craving only that, and continually trying to hide these effects with a happy-g-lucky (when not aggro-competitive) demeanor with teammates. I, in short, play at sport for all the wrong reasons, finding losing unbearable but seeking out the easy-win instead of the challenge.

This is a whole lot of self-criticism and value-laden analysis for the silly act of playing Ultimate in a Tuesday night league; don't allow me to pretend that I'm the only one with this motivation set, or that others out there are not more cowardly than me. If anything, though, this is an honest account, and a good old-fashioned purgatory aim informs this post. I am, I think, too run down and old and too surgeried to pursue the nobler aims of self betterment and victory in competition. I am left with the trickles of past accomplishment and the current days of fun. I suppose in essence I aim to free my sports-playing of the external, judgmental narrative, and wish that I could just do it for "love of the game," whatever inherent joy I feel within it (as though that itself were not an external narrative as well). I wish that I could just do something for the happiness of it - even if that happiness is rather holistically selfishly derived. I am probably exercising my childhood MO, tha tof being my own worst enemy, and truth be told therer are other less centralized aspects of the game that I do if not enjoy: teaching a newbie to throw, complimenting a teammates effort. So, all is not evil in the Ultimate Nyetverse. Still, hopefully this public pondering will get me in a less self-centered mindset for tonight's game. Maybe not. Regardless, it's 2:30, so I'd better head down for my pre-pre-pre game warmup. Not really.