A Brief History of Competition

I suppose at the beginning of the history of man, he spent most of his time working. Adam, for example, had to name and classify and organize all of creation; remember, this predated not only the computer database, but also the invention of the 3x5 index card. Eventually, however, he must have felt the need for recreation. The Scripture does not record whether he recognized the basic human instinct for play within himself, or whether Eve simply began complaining that he never took a day off or took her anywhere – judge for yourself.

Soon thereafter, recreation probably included testing one’s skills in rock-throwing for distance or accuracy, or the like: the beginning of sports as we know it. Then, after the invention of what we like to call “other people”, someone else was standing nearby and said, “I’ll bet you a day’s manna that I can throw the rock farther,” and suddenly we have competitive sports.

One day two of those guys were having a close contest, and the neighbors came over to watch, leading to the advent of spectator sports. My guess is that it was the next day that an enterprising fellow put a wall around the other two and began to charge admission -- would you call that “organized” sports? And the day after that, one of the contestants said, “I’m not going to put on a show for you unless you give me a cut of the gate,” which of course constitutes professional sports.

And so it continued for many, many years without much change – until the coming of newspapers. Think about it: reading a newspaper allows us in effect to send someone else to the game for us; then we read his or her account of what happened. Which is yet another “degree of separation” from the original guy throwing a rock.

Two things got me started thinking about this topic: Television Without Pity, and Big Brother. Television Without Pity is a blogsite where the writers blog about TV shows; I visit it frequently to keep up with my favorite shows. Oddly, I prefer to read an entry about an episode I’ve already watched over an episode I’ve missed; I do that every day, and even I think that’s weird.

Big Brother is a reality competition program (as always, using the word “reality” in its TV rather than its actual literal English-language sense) where people go live in a house filled with cameras, and one by one they get kicked out. I watched the first season, right after the original Survivor got me all hyped up about reality TV, and... nothing happened. They sat around, they talked, they ate peanut butter; once in awhile they had a competition invented by the producers. There was one guy who was mildly controversial, so they kicked him out first thing. OK, I confess I watched the second go-round too, but even less happened, so I’m all done.

But suppose I take it into my head to read the Big Brother blog? Actually, I do, once in awhile if the headline catches my eye. Then I’m sitting at my computer, reading something written by a guy who watched a show produced by a bunch of guys who pointed their cameras at a bunch of other people sitting around in a house doing nothing.

I love TV, I love to read, and I especially love to read a good TV blog. But when I consider how far removed you can get from actually doing something, I have to turn off my computer and go outside. Let's see how far I can throw a rock.

Root, Root, Root for the Virtual Home Team

In the photo album of my mind, I seem to be missing many of the pages allotted to childhood, but one memory I can almost put a specific date on is the 1969 World Series. I’m aware that I may have inadvertently embellished this one over the years, but I have a very distinct memory of Jerry Koosman batting for the Mets and NBC play-by-play man Curt Gowdy talking about what an awful hitter he was. I also remember being a bit offended by that (although I would, over the years, learn for myself that he was indeed an awful hitter).

The real significance of that memory is that it marks the conscious beginning of my interest in the Mets. Throughout 1970, our local TV station would occasionally broadcast Sunday Mets games, which I watched avidly; in 1971 I got to go to Shea Stadium to see a game in person, and by then the affair was in full bloom.

As a consequence, this has been a satisfying season for me – except for the fact that I’ve seen about the same number of Mets games as I did in 1970, thanks to the evil gatekeeping trolls at our cable company, who even through a corporate takeover have (both) steadfastly denied me access to the Mets’ cable network. So I have an extra reason to enjoy the Mets’ trip to the postseason: I get to watch their games.

I find that playoff games give me a purer kind of joy than the regular season games do; you see, as I’ve confessed previously, I am a fantasy baseball player. In any game, the team I am rooting against – even the absolutely loathsome corporation that also wears an NY logo, whose name I shall not speak – may include a player (or worse yet, a pitcher, since their performances tend to have a more pronounced effect on my scores) who is part of my fantasy squad. So I end up hoping that a guy like Ryan Howard of the Phillies will bat against the Mets with 2 outs in the 9th and the bases loaded, trailing by 5 runs, so he can hit a grand slam: Mets win, I get 9 points for my team.

This brand of rooting is extremely mentally fatiguing, especially when you multiply by the number of players I “own”, so in some ways it’s a relief that the fantasy portion of the season is over (all the more so since I won my league, and by the absolute thinnest of margins: after 6 months of competition, my score was 0.5% higher than the second-place finisher).

Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m obsessed or anything. No, no, no, the Other Guy is “obsessed”; my friend is “preoccupied”; for me, it’s merely an “interest”. I could point out to you that I was in second place as late as September 26, but I’m afraid you might read something into the fact that I'm aware of that statistic.

Trust me, it’s only a “hobby”.

If I told you that I had the leading scorers among both shortstops and outfielders, you might lose sight of the impressiveness of that feat (distracted by wondering who would even know such a thing).

Really, it’s just a “pastime”.

However, if you’re curious about the standings as of June 12… if you’re wondering which player scored the most points in the month of August… if you need to know which team totaled the most RBI for the season (ahem, ahem)… just let me know. I mean, it's not like the binding on the yearbook is even real leather.

The Lifesong in My Head

Some time ago, I read somewhere that people who talk to themselves are usually very intelligent. At least I think that’s what I read; I’m certainly not going to go back and try to confirm it. Considering the alternatives, I’m going to stick with the most attractive, and self-serving, explanation possible.

In my defense, it is basically one conversation at a time… well, that may be a little misleading (and self-serving). There are usually several channels going at once: besides the mundane running dialogue (oops, did I say dialogue? I know, I KNOW, you’re not supposed to answer yourself), it’s not uncommon for something like a separate “process” to be running, writing a blog in my head; and there is almost always a music channel playing as well. This doesn’t even count the input from external sources, which – depending on the number and identity of the children in my vicinity – can be prodigious in its own right. I am fortunate that the brain is the ultimate Windows(TM) operating system, capable of minimizing one program while one of the others is running full-force.

Most of the music I listen to from outside my head these days is Christian contemporary, so that’s also the bulk of my interior playlist. While, as I have mentioned, I’m fairly susceptible to getting a song stuck in my head, in this case it’s not entirely a bad thing.

My opportunities for spiritual self-maintenance are somewhat sporadic… or more accurately/truthfully, I don’t fully take advantage of the opportunities I have. One thing I do have going for me is that I've always found that Christian music burrows inside my soul and my brain in ways that books and sermons can’t always match.

Recently I have been haunted (I don’t think that’s too strong a word, actually) by one image in one song: “Lifesong”, by Casting Crowns. Mark Hall, the lead vocalist & principal songwriter for the group, has a remarkable ability to capture important spiritual concepts in a song that rocks but is also challenging (I would recommend without hesitation either of their first 2 CDs).

Here’s the chorus I keep hearing:

Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign Your name to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

It made me really think about how many of my days I even want to sign my own name to, let alone God’s name. Most of the time I think I would be content to submit my day anonymously (just leave it on the desk when nobody's looking), and not have to answer for the results. Well, all right, there are any number of days where I’ve done “good work”, and I’d be willing to take the credit for them. But how often is my day of the kind of quality, and consistency, that makes it appropriate for inclusion in the God Signature Collection?

I continue to ponder that as we move into fall; with so many demands ramping up all around me, it can be tempting to settle for Good Enough. I’m getting the feeling more and more that God (who created my multichannel brain to begin with) is using one or more of those channels to remind me not to settle for the best I can do … but instead to strive for the best He can do.