I grew up playing sports and loving sports as a child. I even played football and water polo throughout high school — winning the state championship in water polo my senior year. As a boy, I was greatly influenced by my social environment to not only love sports, but to also worship them. I worshiped them through clothes, conversation and the way I spent my leisure time.

Sports always seemed to be like the weather — it was something that anyone could talk about at anytime. It also let the other person know that you’re okay — a regular, normal person.

Like most Americans, I spent my weekends in front of the TV watching football, got excited as the Super Bowl approached and was depressed when the season was over. I found, like I did with video games, that I wasted a huge amount of my time watching and talking about it.

As I got older (during my mid-twenties) I started to have aspirations for more meaningful things — writing, starting new businesses, psychology, etc… As my pursuits were juxtaposed to sports, it soon became clear just how completely meaningless professional sports were/are. I began to ween myself off of sports — avoiding games on TV, checking scores on the Internet and conversations about sports.

Removing professional sports from my life allowed me to spend more time with my family, read more and focus on the things that I wanted to accomplish in life. It also made me stand out socially — not something I was going for, but it was unavoidable. When people would strike up conversations with me about an athlete or a big game, I would have no idea what they were talking about. I tried to act like I had some clue of what they were talking about, just to avoid the awkwardness, but once they figure out that I was clueless, they generally gave me an emasculated response. It wasn’t with their words, but more with their facial expressions. It was usually an “are you a real man?” look.

I say all of this, because a recent article about a woman inducing birth early so her husband could go to a football game absolutely perplexed me. For me, I see a man who has devoted his time, money and energy into loving something that’s absolutely meaningless — an NFL team. The NFL is a giant commercial outfit designed to solely make money. It’s the antithesis of intellectualism and attaches itself to the tribal mentality of human beings — belonging to something and conquering all others. The problem is that like most things, it’s make believe. What happens after someone wins the Super Bowl or any other game for that matter? Nothing. At its best, it’s a distraction (which we all need to some extent). But to make it as important as things that have meaning, like a new baby and the health of your wife, is shamefully pathetic and off balance.

I’m not anti-sports. It doesn’t mind me that people are interested in sports and spend time watching and attending games. However, like anything that’s ultimately meaningless, it should never take precedence or equal importance to the things that truly matter in life.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Daily Living, Lifestyles, Mental Environment, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.