To the Victor Goes the Spoils

Hey everyone (and by everyone, I mean my single subscriber at this point),
First of all, I want to assure everyONE that I don't want this blog to just degenerate into a litmus test for my mood swings. I have a journal for that sort of writing, and that carries the dual benefits that nobody will try to pry into my personal life, and neither will they feel as though I'm trying to ram those selfsame thoughts down their throat(s).

That being said, I will use this blog as an outlet for meditations that I think merit release. I will try to record these in a fair and rational manner, though.

So here's a little introspection: anyone who knows me will say that I'm not really a competitive guy. For the most part; at times I show a competitive streak, but only infrequently. I'm trying to think where that facet of my personality comes from--competition wasn't really emphasized in my household when I was growing up. No allegiances to sports teams were espoused. My brother and I played pretty calmly; he would always beat me in board games and the like, and since I didn't like losing, I just gradually learned to stop challenging him. Most of our play was collaborative or independent rather than competitive, and even in the midst of competition, I remember him as a very impassive opponent, and as a young kid, frequently I didn't realize how badly I was being beaten or just kind of emulated his passivity in victory with a similar passivity in defeat. We just read books more than anything else, where your only opponent is yourself...but then, how much of a rise do you really get from completing a book? Not exactly invigorating.

Growing up in a household where sports were virtually absent, I'm still pretty clueless about most sports. I can remember attempts by my parents to teach Andrew and I to throw a football or the proper way to catch, but neither of us were interested, so there was no point for my parents--neither of whom are sports enthusiasts themselves--to persist in this way. I played soccer at the YMCA for a couple years, but the coaches had this brilliant strategy of neglecting to explain the game to the stupid six-year-olds and instead just turning us loose to roam the field. I remember receiving the ball during one such game and literally stopping in my tracks: this had never happened before, and I was completely at a loss. No worries, though; the coach's daughter managed to put the ball in the goal, which was ample cause for obligatory celebration.

The "Don't Ask, Don't Teach" policy was in full swing throughout all my years of elementary school--bear in mind that if you're a youngster at a Christian school in the midwest, it was assumed that you know how to play sports, because there's no pastime in which the Good Lord takes more unadulterated delight than seeing the sheep of His flock putting the ball through the hoop. Then by middle school, if you don't know how to play these games, you're just a lost cause; the question of learning, much less being taught, is stupid.

This wasn't entirely the case. I started playing on the school soccer teams in fifth grade, and after a year, I finally began to get a grasp on the game. Of course, this didn't happen until the coach gave me some pointers, just the most elementary principles of the game, that enabled me to at least act like I knew what I was doing. (Funny thing is, these tips only took a couple minutes to explain; I suppose all my coaches and physical education teachers in previous years just didn't have those few minutes to spare to help the kid who obviously didn't know what he was doing...but then again, they are busy, important people, aren't they?) Middle school soccer was a fun experience--lots of my friends were on the team as well, and even though I wasn't very good, I still managed to enjoy playing, and as a defensive player I even blocked a couple of shots throughout the season.

Soccer stopped after middle school, though; during our practices, I could see the ordeal that was varsity soccer practice, and I had no difficulty deciding that the returns I would receive weren't worth the blood, sweat, and tears I would have to invest in order to join that proud fraternity.

I should clarify that I don't intend to blame negligent instructors for my ineptitude at sports. I mean, as an American male child, teenager, and now young man, I'm definitely the oddball for still being ignorant of the technical rules of the major sports. If I had been like most other young boys, I would have learned these almost as a part of growing up, and that would have been a good foundation for more competence. But, for whatever reason, I didn't, and I was never interested enough in them to learn independently.

In high school, I dabbled in the fine arts and literature. I played trumpet in the school concert band from 5th grade through my senior year (like in soccer, I was never outstanding, but I did alright); I got good parts in the school plays for five years and performed occasional skits as a part of the school drama club; I read extensively, and took an interest in writing. During my freshman year, a keen interest in film sprung up in me, and that combined with my lifelong reading habit to form a general love of stories and a curiosity into the different ways to effectively tell a story. I suppose I viewed myself as something of a nonconformist, and perhaps I was, but not in an overtly intentional way. I mean, let's face it--high school is a weird time of life.

During this time, I gradually came to really regret that fact that I didn't really know aything about sports. This can leave you isolated in a lot of ways in current American culture, obviously; I couldn't contribute to digressions on the annual NCAA tournament or even just step in to join an improptu game of basketball in the gymnasium. This is something that I'm still really self-conscious about, and even though it's probably too late to substantially change things, I want to at least learn the rules and conventions of different sports--undertaking at age 19 what most boys learn by age 7--and try to get more active and try some different sports. I'm late, but hopefully not too late.

Now, to rope this all back in: I'm not competitive (a fact that I'm attributing to both nature and nurture after everything I just typed). I'm okay with that. I feel that I'm a pretty pleasant guy to be around. Of course lots of other people are really competitive--heck, my girlfriend is one such person--and I'm cool with that too, I really am.

Maybe it's just that I don't see winning as most interesting part of playing a game. To me, the most interesting thing about a basketball game or billiards or whatever is the way that the players willingly submit to arbitrary rules for the duration of the game and watching what results. It's like a science experiment, and the players are the variable values. I think it would be interesting to try out different variables just to see how the games ended up...but of course, the most common variables are those used just to obtain different permutations of victory.

Nobody likes losing a game, and I admit that I still get upset about losing at games sometimes. But most of the time I don't mind losing a game until I feel as if my opponent is just drawing attention to their victory. Then I get indignant--of everything that the game entails, it seems like a pretty dull thing to focus on when all's said and done. I prefer to enjoy the process of playing the game. Admittedly, sometimes I take action that may slow my chances of victory, but isn't the actual game more fun than the outcome? Half the time when I play Settlers of Catan, I don't worry much about winning, but instead just set other goals for myself, like just trying to get the longest road or arrange my settlements in a certain pattern. I feel like if I played with victory as my sole objective, the game gets a lot more repetitive the more I play it. Granted every game is intrinsically different, but still, I like more originality. I like to challenge myself more than my fellow players, and sometimes that means adding my own personal arbitrary rules, such as completely avoiding tiles that yield grain or maybe placing the robber on my own territory every chance I get. If I alter the equation of the game, what's the result? I like to play just for the sake of playing.

If I complained about my losses after these strategies, then I would just be a moron. But I honestly don't think I do complain about my losses. A fellow player may think the way I play the game is stupid; I may think the way he plays the game is terribly dull. So what? Perhaps winning is the objective of the game; well, even if it is, if I defy that objective, the only person I hurt is myself (unless it's a team game, obviously).

I could say more about this, but this has grown to a monstrous post already, and I'm losing focus.

The Bottom Line: I'm not competitive. I don't see anything so wrong with that. I try not to dislike people who are more competitive than I, and I feel like I can make that work most of the time. However, if they want to criticize my philosophy, what's to stop me from turning right around and criticizing theirs? Let me be myself, and enjoy being who I am; I'm only too eager to return the favor.