I don’t understand sports.
I mean, I understand them mechanically. I know the rules. I get the entertainment aspect (well, kind of). And sports are actually pretty decent things to gamble on. Not that I gamble. But I do.
I just don’t care about them. Sports mean nothing to me. I plan on spending exactly zero hours of my life worrying about whether some group of athletes is going to win or lose some game way over there, away from me.
The thing is, sports go against just about every piece of practical wisdom I know of. Or at least, being a sports fan does. It just makes absolutely no sense to me.
Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett talk about how lucky they were to be born in the United States. “We won the Ovarian Lottery,” they say. They understand the profound impact of where you’re born and the circumstances you’re born into upon who and what you become in life. They don’t pretend that they’d have been successful in a different time or a different place — they don’t put themselves at the center of their own success. They view luck as, at the very least, a co-central reason for their success.
Warren and Charlie understand that the place they were born was not something they could control, and is simply an element of chance.
Contrast that against sports fans. Sports fans will get in fist fights and go to the hospital over where they were born and what team they support. They internalize this concept of geographical luck to the point of taking head injuries for it. They defend their turf as if their turf is something they chose. They don’t see it as luck. They see it as an extension of their own sense of self. As if they chose the one single correct place to live and that everybody else is wrong.
It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
I live in Ohio, USA. So I spend a lot of time around Cleveland Browns fans. And, my god man, Browns fans hate Pittsburgh Steelers fans. Hate. Browns fans will sit around and call Steelers fans dumbasses and redneck pieces of shit and all kinds of ridiculous stuff. And I’m like Jesus man… those people are just regular people. With kids and families. They are probably doing what you’re doing, and just trying to be good men and women. They’re just doing it over there.
It’s like how traffic brings out the worst in human behavior. I have never seen something so consistently strip away people’s virtues and integrity than driving a car. Almost everybody becomes a raging psychopath, a volatile bundle of hate, behind the wheel of a car. Why is that? I think it’s because we look at driving and sports in very similar ways — they are extensions of our identity (and ego) in an environment that we deem as competitive. They are places where we want to get ahead and be respected. We want to have a place — a place we think we deserve. They are situations where we want to have what we want at the expense of what other people want — and only one of us can win. When someone threatens our place, or steps in front of us and prevents us from having the ego satisfaction we’re after, they are automatically a Fucking Piece of Shit. Regardless of context and regardless of who they are.
Sports fans harbor extreme emotions — pride and hate — over made-up tribal nonsense decided by imaginary lines. Making a location a part of your identity can be emotionally gratifying, especially as it pertains to beauty and culture. If you were born in the countryside of Switzerland into a family and a community that appreciates its beauty, I can see why you’d be proud of it.
But most sports fans weren’t born in the countryside. They were born in a disgusting brown city that looks just like all the other disgusting brown cities. There really isn’t anything there to be “proud” of. Especially not when it leads you to hate other people. And especially not when it’s for no reason other than “they don’t live here and therefore they as people are stupid and incorrect.” To feel hate or pride over something you didn’t even contribute to is a useless exercise in narcissism. It’s pure masturbation. If there was ever a kind of behavior that screamed “I’m the center of the universe,” this is it.
You came out from between your mother’s legs at a particular location on earth, and decided “this is the best place. This one right here.” And then you take credit for it as if it’s something you researched and invested in pre-womb.
Not to mention how you’re hinging your own identity and your own sense of well-being on the actions of a bunch of athletes who don’t know you and don’t care about you. I mean… they’re not playing the game for you. Sorry. They’re playing it for themselves — to win and to get paid. And here you are acting as if they represent you. Down to the very core of who you are, they represent you. They stand for you.
But they don’t. Your only involvement in this situation is to keep buying cheap beer and jersey T-shirts made in Taiwan.
You are living your life through the actions of someone else. That’s precisely what we are taught not to do when we’re… oh, say, getting off drugs and abandoning self-destructive behavior. It’s exactly what we’re taught not to do.
In a lot of ways, I look at sports fans as drug addicts. Their personal shortcomings are ego, anger, vicarious living, dependence on others, and self-pity. Their drugs are the pride and hate that come with watching sports.
I see people get in fights at sports stadiums and I think… what for? I mean, you two could probably be good friends. You and Vicarious Lee over here are both sitting around drinking awful American beer and screaming yourselves hoarse. You’re both easily entertained by men running around in colorful costumes. You’re both sitting here imagining what the referees would look like with large knives sticking out of their heads. You actually have quite a lot in common.
The only reason you are fighting is because your culture tells you that location is part of who you are. You’re different because you don’t live near each other. Each of you thinks “if my team wins, that’s correct. If his team wins, that’s incorrect.”
And, in reality, the results of this game are absolutely inconsequential. The universe does not care about the outcome of this game. Only you do.
Culture does some pretty weird things to us.
I get confused, and frustrated, watching people scream at the TV. Screaming at the refs, screaming at the quarterback to get his head out of his ass, screaming at the opposing safety for facemasking. I mean, you already know they can’t hear you. And that in itself makes the screaming bad enough.
But then it also reminds me of the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Screaming at your sports team is the epitome of losing your serenity over things you cannot control. It’s the epitome of not having the wisdom to know the difference.
There is nothing you can do about this game. You are not a player, you are not a coach… you aren’t even in the same time zone. This falls decisively in the category of “cannot change.” Why you’re taking your hard-earned serenity and putting it into a fucking woodchipper is beyond me. I will never understand it.
And here’s the last thing: when your team loses, it ruins your day. Maybe even your week. And when your team wins, what exactly does it do for your life? Nothing. Not a god damn thing. It doesn’t improve your life at all. Being an intense sports fan has no upside — it’s pure downside. All you did was spend money on refreshments and increase your blood pressure.
There are aspects of sports that I find interesting. Like the pushing of human boundaries and performance. The effort and discipline of becoming the best. The building and refining of teamwork and communication.
But I’d rather study these things in other areas of life. Areas that don’t inherently bring out the worst in people.
Sports can be best enjoyed the same way all of life can be best enjoyed: with curiosity. Not expectations, not demands, not ego. Curiosity. A genuine interest in what’s going to happen next.
To me, that’s the only reasonable way to watch sports. Everything else is anti-wisdom. Straight-up bad for you.
Drink water, or just drink American beer. Same thing.
JDR
“The 19-year-olds who attend my favorite university didn’t score enough touchdowns today so I’m in the basement, drinking until I fall asleep. My wife is crying, begging me to come upstairs & watch a Muppet Christmas Carol with my family. ‘I don’t care if I die tonight’ I whisper.” - random Twitter user Dan White
That’s not why sports fans fight. It’s just about a sense of belonging and a hatred of the Other. It’s about competition for attention, recognition, dominance and a sense that your way is the right way. That your values and way of life is superior. Sports fans see the sports teams as REFLECTIONS of themselves not EXTENSIONS. That is why millions of Argentinians showed up to celebrate their win with the team. Sports are extremely emotional affairs that can permeate into every other aspect of society. Watch the Pele documentary for instance. In sports a win can go a long way in social, economic and political affairs.
beauty. panem et circenses