In it for the long haul

I made my choices a while back.  I still tend to think that they are good choices.  But man-oh-man, am I ever out of touch with the mass-men who are dominant in the society that I live. 

I will watch one of the mass meetings cum pageantry today.  In my heart of hearts, I know that football is beginning it's decline.  But ten years of my life were spent at the game, with a look at every level.  I loved playing the game.  But the corporation that has parasitically attached itself to the game to monetize it's joy is a cancer that will end up killing the sport.

Now people see football as a way to attach themselves to someone else's excellence.  Madison Avenue has attached itself parasitically to this desire and the resultant cancer has metastasized.  And Buckaroo, metastasis always results in death.

But, even knowing the impending decline, I still want to watch the skills at work, I revel in teamwork well-executed.  I marvel at the desire to win.  I am astounded that grown men can so completely immerse themselves into a game.  But I am mostly impressed by the discipline and desire of lives that led these men to where they are, playing on the biggest stage, with the bet on the table being winner take all.

The nationalistic nonsense that the NFL has attached to the game is a huge problem.  The violence has gone a bit too far and the league is still flailing at the paradox of fan-appreciation and its cost of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.  The arrogance of the players is becoming breathtaking, magnified by the NFL PR colossus and a predatory media.  The fans require more and more stimulation to get the same effect.  All of these problems are irreconcilable.  Eventually they will kill the sport.

But today, I am going to watch a game with people who played the game and had who also had to walk away.  I will also know for a fact that they, like me, still regret that leaving and look at that loss with almost the same sorrow as the loss of a friend.

But more than anything I will glory in the dance of violence and discipline and cunning that the game represents.  I am looking forward the game.