posted
mediocrity is good enough, if thats honestly all youre capable of. i could be highly mediocre at sport if i hadnt been treated like a fucking loser for being shit at it, and hence decided for a substantial period of my young adult life that i would never do anything active ever again, unless it resulted in the provision of either snacks or cunnilingus.
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but if you weren't in sports at school, then you were probably missing out on being seen not only as a valuble person in school, but also getting sex, getting away with causing trouble, making your parents proud and receiving trophies, whereas the rest of us weren't doing these things. So, the natural jealousy is translated into dismissal. It's hard to think, I've done mostly what I was told to do, slaved away over books, followed advice and got okay grades, and here I am, trapped and miserable, while the bastards who were giving me shit in school, fucking around and relying on their seemingly god given physical dexterity to cruise through the system are now super rich, boning models, and living beyond the realm of the law.
It's just jealousy. I'm not glad that I'm not a premiership footballer. It looks pretty awesome. Compared to, for example, working as an insignficant cog in the wheels of a monolith, where your only thanks is being given a chair that you can adjust the height, amd just enough money to keep you in the baubles and trinkets that you hang in the over-cot mobile that you call your life.
You know, it's all good. But I doubt that Cristiano Ronaldo would want to borrow many elements from my life if he had the chance.
[ 23.01.2008, 10:10: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: It's hard to think, I've done mostly what I was told to do, slaved away over books... ... while the bastards who were giving me shit in school, fucking around and relying on their seemingly god given physical dexterity...
If I may be forgiven in my little spat of armchair psychology...
From my own experience, those who pour over books never 'see' the real world until school is over. (there are exceptions, but bear with me) Whereas 'jocks' are out there, doing it.. Doing the party thing, shagging everything that moves, whatever... It's about social bonds.
A lot of these people you loathe for being better off aren't necessarily better off because of their sport... They are cruising because the world is a social machine and if you can play the game, you do well.
On micro levels, the same can be seen in offices. Those who are good at office politics are usually the management even though the majority couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag whilst the 'underlings' are stuck in the mire and being ignored. It's not because you are being faulted for applying yourself scholastically, it's because you 'failed' to become successful in the social machine.
If you wanted to be rewarded for studying every minute of every day, enter the adult world as a scholar or scientist where you would be rewarded for your endeavours.
(please don't take my you's as YOU... Just being general)
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But sport is only valuable as a social bonding mechanism if you're any good. If you're a bit shit, it's the polar opposite. It seems to exaggerate the less attractive characteristics of the human race: the physically more gifted are further rewarded with bonding, the opportunity to wank over biscuits, etc, while the enfeebled are left on the sidelines. Plotting the downfall of the jocks.
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quote:Originally posted by dance margarita: mediocrity is good enough, if thats honestly all youre capable of. i could be highly mediocre at sport if i hadnt been treated like a fucking loser for being shit at it, and hence decided for a substantial period of my young adult life that i would never do anything active ever again, unless it resulted in the provision of either snacks or cunnilingus.
quote:Originally posted by Tilde:
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: Yeah, especially if, as you say, sports people are severely ostrcised for failure.
But that's not the fault of 'sport'... It's the inability to handle stress, peer pressure, and failure.
Sport is just an 'instant' award mechanism where you know almost immediately if you are shit or not. Whereas scholastically, you spend the whole year, sometimes years, studying only to fail and then you go hang yourself whilst listening to the Cure.
Blaming sport and the failure to integrate is the 'simple answer'... I equate it to the same dustbin I put opinions like "rap music and violent video games are the cause of all this™".
Certain types of people have always been 'failures', in times of war, they were usually the ones that carried the flag or played the drums. Today, they just take their angst out on others.
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I'm sure when the American team lost at Vietnam, they were very appreciative of the 'character building' reception they received when they returned home.
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: Most of the people I know who were good at sport at school are long-term unemployed or in prison.
That's the same for me. All the jocks at my school who played the machine like sabian suggests all got turbo bombed on scag and have no teeth. Actually, even the successful people from my school have had nervous breakdowns and shit. For some reason, old students at my school are shell-shocked like they were in fucking 'nam or something.
lolol: NAM mindmeld
quote:Originally posted by sabian: But that's not the fault of 'sport'... It's the inability to handle stress, peer pressure, and failure.
I'm not going to allow this. No sir. At school, you may be surprised to learn I wasn't very tall. I was much smaller than most all of the kids. Like Thorn says, you might has well have paired me up against grown men. It was a massacre. In rugby (admittedly my favourite sport) I would have to exert every last vestige of energy to catch up with someone, leap into the air, clasp my arms on their thighs/knees and pray, fucking pray I'd got enough power in my kamikazi detah move to get a good grip and pull the opponent down. If not, the result would be being dragged a good 20 feet and finally slipping to the ground whilst being kicked in the face a dozen time by spiked boots. The fact that later on, I would go on to have my towel thrown in the wet end of the shower block and bag emptied out was not due to my inability to handle stress, peer pressure and failure, but my lack of physical strength to knock the ***** out for picking on me for being physically different. I was in heaven when a stubborn ingrowing toenail refused to heal. The only joy I received was when having my toe stepped on purposefully, I could retort 'great now I don't have to roll around on the floor like a fucking gaybo, you gaybo' and be grateful of an hours worth of peace while the teacher forced the rest of the class to run around in the cold.
[ 23.01.2008, 12:19: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: All the jocks at my school who played the machine like sabian suggests all got turbo bombed on scag and have no teeth. Actually, even the successful people from my school have had nervous breakdowns and shit. For some reason, old students at my school are shell-shocked like they were in fucking 'nam or something.
Every kid dreams of joining Cubs, right? Or at least they did once. These days I expect kids dream of raping cubs with lead pipes on Grand Theft Auto: Suffolk Village but, back in the day, they all wanted to join cubs. It was going to be all about starting fires, learning knots and owning knives. Cubs was going to be brilliant. Only it wasn’t. Not our Cubs. I left the day they set us the task of cutting pictures out of a pile of newspapers and pasting them into a Royal Scrap Book - pictures of the royal family: the Queen, Prince Edward, that lovely Diana Spencer who was going to marry Prince Charles, all pasted into a cheap, grey scrap book, made of rough paper that gave me goose bumps as I ran my palm across its pages. Yeah, I left that day, thoroughly disenchanted with the whole Cubs experience. Top of the disappointment tree was their lack of a toilet. You had to cross your legs all night or head out into the dark woods somewhere and pee, flanked by a Cub leader with a roving eye who, as we all know all now, was a peado. So I held it in. The last part of the evening was a long assembly thing where we all looked back over the last few hours and plucked some kind of moral from of the evenings proceedings. It was a bit like the end of Batman the cartoon, where the Bat Computer would reason that the Riddler was right, in a way, to attack Gotham's fast food joints because "hey, kids, fast food is bad for you, but infecting the cheese burgers with his enigma poison was the wrong way for the Riddler to fight obesity" – except in our case the moral would be: "whatever your mission, Cubs, be it tying a knot or sticking glue on the back of Prince Anne's head to make something worthwhile and patriotic, a job done well is a job well done."
So we're in the long, moralising part of the evening, a few months before we've even got to the actual scrap book night. Arkala is making some speech about how learning to sew is a bit like dealing with other cultures. I'm desperate for a wee but daren't interrupt her in full flow, as she compares macramé to We Are the World. I don't want to go out into the dark. I'm holding my widgie tighter and tighter in my fist. My bladder is about to burst but I'm gripping the shaft tighter and tighter and tighter. My widgie has turned white. My head is spinning. I'll just let a little out...it's the only way...must relieve a little of the pressure. Just a few drops and...woosh. I let go of the pipe. The blood rushes to my head and a gallon of warm wee cascades down my legs.
Don't panic, comrades, your hero escaped intact. I was wearing shorts. I got away with it. With no tell-tale stain, somehow I seaked from the Cub Hut without anyone knowing I'd wet myself. A year earlier, my brother wasn’t so lucky. He did the same thing at Scouts. Admittedly he was old enough to know better by then but, well, their but for the grace of god 'go' I.
He wasn’t so lucky. Long, grey trousers, you see. He never stood a chance.
It was a pair of shorts that saved me from being Wetleg instead of just Wetleg's brother. There was a significant difference. I'm so much more confident than Wetleg. I was always more confident than Wetleg; well, ever since he became Wetleg anyway. More confident than my older brother. It was wrong. I bullied him. I bullied my older brother. Wetleg. It was all so wrong. And I think the defining moment in our sibling relationship can be traced to that single stroke of good fortune: I had shorts on; Wetleg didn't.
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: It's hard to think, I've done mostly what I was told to do, slaved away over books, followed advice and got okay grades, and here I am, trapped and miserable, while the bastards who were giving me shit in school, fucking around and relying on their seemingly god given physical dexterity to cruise through the system are now super rich, boning models, and living beyond the realm of the law.
It's just jealousy. I'm not glad that I'm not a premiership footballer. It looks pretty awesome. Compared to, for example, working as an insignficant cog in the wheels of a monolith, where your only thanks is being given a chair that you can adjust the height, amd just enough money to keep you in the baubles and trinkets that you hang in the over-cot mobile that you call your life.
You know, it's all good. But I doubt that Cristiano Ronaldo would want to borrow many elements from my life if he had the chance.
How many of the people you went to school with and who excelled at sport are premiereship footballers. Is the number less than one? I'm sure that to become a world class sportsperson you have to put more time in than simply relying on your natural ability
I'm curious, also, Benway - do you see your life only in terms of the fiscal rewards that its dispirate elements can provide? You mention about slaving away over books, but surely you can appreciate the depth that adds to life beyond simple remuneration. I mean, you often show a kind of profound appreciation of great art - stuff like Paul Auster and Haruki Murakami - is that something you just give zero value for? Putting aside the kind of Nuts reader persona for a moment, is that something you'd rather never experience in exchange for a big house with a 60in plasma on every wall, which you kept using to watch Gone in 60 Seconds because you thought it was the best film ever made? I don't mean to lead you anywhere with that questions: obviously the answer might be "Yes. Gimme the chicks and the tellies". I'm just curious, really.
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: I'm sure when the American team lost at Vietnam, they were very appreciative of the 'character building' reception they received when they returned home.
Some 25 year old living at home with mommie and daddy who has never experienced anything about Vietnam except from video games or the odd "Full Metal Jacket" marathon throwing comments about the disgraceful way vets were treated when they came home means very little I'm afraid.
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: At school, you may be surprised to learn I wasn't very tall. I was much smaller than most all of the kids.
Listen mate... I'm not trying to broad-brush entire sub-sects of humanity here... I'm simply saying that there are those that can handle defeat and/or hardships and those who can't. The prats who shoot up a school because no one will play D&D with them were fucked long before they were bullied. Being bullied was just the catalyst that ignited the pre-existing fucked chemical cocktail in their head.
Yeah, you're short but you're also one of the most outwardly confident people I've met in Britain and someone that I genuinely enjoy spending time with, I don't take day trips to Brighton to look at beards for just anyone you know! So, yeah, your school journey may have been a difficult one, but it went a long way into making you who you are and you are a pretty decent bloke so, all said and done, it didn't do too much harm, did it?
A fact that may have escaped your notice as well is that I'm not exactly rail thin. I've always been a fat bastard which made my childhood a veritable hell. There were days when I wanted to jack it all in, literally. But I didn't because... I don't know why, perhaps I embraced what doesn't kill me makes me stronger attitude and when I think back at the abuse that I suffered (and still suffer today) for the benefit of other simple-minded people to make themselves feel better, I wouldn't change any of it because it has made me who I am today. It has seen me through things that many have never experienced. Gave me the confidence to live on my own from an early age. Allowed me the ability to take a job that I knew I'd hate, but would give me the chance to see more of the 'world' than others see in a life time. Didn't frighten me off from taking a chance and moving to a foreign country to endure the same sort of knuckle-dragging bigotry heightened by a British accent to make a life here and bring up my children in a manor that I hope will ensure their happiness and strength as adults. We do what we do because we can do no different. Those who peg out are too quick to find excuses. There comes a time when the ills of childhood can no longer be blamed for the adult that you've become, taking responsibility for the life you have now and making it what you can is the mature and honourable way.
And, just to clarify. I was rather intelligent and could have done exceedingly well at school. However, I chose to play sports and be socially active at my education's expense. I know that and with hindsight I wish I would have done a bit more in school. But the experiences I had outside the library were far more educational than reading about someone else experiencing them. So while I lament some of my decisions, I do not regret them.
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quote:Originally posted by sabian: Some 25 year old living at home with mommie and daddy who has never experienced anything about Vietnam except from video games or the odd "Full Metal Jacket" marathon throwing comments about the disgraceful way vets were treated when they came home means very little I'm afraid.
Surely you're only - what? - 28? 29? What makes your experience of Vietnam so much more direct and personal that you can tell Ringo whether or not his opinion means anything?
By this rationale it would mean 'very little' if anyone here described the holocaust of the Jews as 'a bad thing' because they could only have learned about it through films and books. The great thing about this idiotic comment is that it comes in the same post in which you described yourself as intelligent.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: How many of the people you went to school with and who excelled at sport are premiereship footballers. Is the number less than one? I'm sure that to become a world class sportsperson you have to put more time in than simply relying on your natural ability
I'm curious, also, Benway - do you see your life only in terms of the fiscal rewards that its dispirate elements can provide? You mention about slaving away over books, but surely you can appreciate the depth that adds to life beyond simple remuneration. I mean, you often show a kind of profound appreciation of great art - stuff like Paul Auster and Haruki Murakami - is that something you just give zero value for? Putting aside the kind of Nuts reader persona for a moment, is that something you'd rather never experience in exchange for a big house with a 60in plasma on every wall, which you kept using to watch Gone in 60 Seconds because you thought it was the best film ever made? I don't mean to lead you anywhere with that questions: obviously the answer might be "Yes. Gimme the chicks and the tellies". I'm just curious, really.
well, I'm not only talking about me, I'm talking about the general way that sport as a whole is often dismissed, and trying to come up with a reason. Sorry, I should have used quotation marks. I'm trying to imagine or crystallise the mindset that does, as sabian put it, look down on sport. I wouldn't say that I personally really slaved away over books at school. In fact, I definitely didn't, but I was aware that I had a harder ride in terms of bollockings and letters home than the sports people, because my lack of effort and imagination wasn't balanced by being lauded for other skills. But I wasn't studious, and I didn't participate in school.
And it is true that I've generally had this underlying (if misplaced) belief that if you battle along eventually something good will happen. Since having the realisation at 21 that I had to some work in the education system, I've tried to adopt a hardy, keep-on-suffering-no-matter-how-much-you-hate-it attitude That's certainly a terrible way to look at things, but it's indicative of a philosophy - the protestant work ethic could be crudely and badly referenced - that is was the general theme of education. It was never about going the extra mile, but just meeting the requirements - an A grade meaning that you have met the requirements very well. It must have sunk in eventually.
Sports always seemed like something chaotic that you either were very good at, and had this double life of away games at other schools and competitions that could get your name in a trophy cabinet, or it was something you just endured to remind you that it's nicer to be in a warm classroom where you aren't getting physically tortured, no matter how boring. Flair and talent never seemed like it was rewarded in anything other than sports, and maybe art, where you got to publically display your stuff. But again with art, there was something mysterious about it. It seemed like a club for people who were born with a magical ability. I'm not saying I had some kind of unseen genius, and I would be leader of the world now if only school hadn't been so stupid as to not make me king, but did always seem like a shitty system that encouraged compliance yet rewarded the non-compliant if they could do something for the school.
The comparison between people you know at school doing sports and people in the international spotlight isn't the point. The point is that they, the national heros, are still 'those kids'. Maybe it's growing up in the eighties, but football for me is quite closely linked with senseless violence and destructively unchecked traditional maleness. But they are free of the system, and that's what's most enviable.
I'd like to have enough money to be able to not go into work any more, or at least, to have time and backing to maybe think about and do something that maybe I can't currently imagine. But while I wouldn't neccesarily want to watch Gone in 60 Seconds on repeat, it's not like I wouldn't be able to read books if I was earning £25k a week or whatever it is. And it's not like my schooling gave me an appreciation of literature. Quite the opposite, it made me hate the very idea of literature, painting it to be a drab world of mechanically listing all the metaphors and symbols in deathly boring books. That's what I mean about 'slaving away' - engaging with shit you hate because there doesn't appear to be any other way. I think that's what school teaches you.
As for books adding depth.. I don't know. I don't know if depth is the right way of looking at it. I think books give you more angles, but it's not like you experience life in a better way after reading them. They don't make you happier, but perhaps provide tools for trying to understand things, even though you'll never actually understand anything. Good ones certainly become internalised, and of course they aren't of zero value, but still, I'd be happy to take a decade off reading if it meant I could have a one long awesome fucking party. And by that I mean, travelling, luxury, girls, carefree hedonism. And to have the strength of character to do it well, without breaking, and again, that's something that's born from those years of feeling like you were good at something when you were a kid. Obviously, there are very people in the world who have made it to the top, but there they are.
Auster and Murakami are good though. I've stared reading another good author, a guy called Mikhail Bulgakov. Recommended.
I hope that makes sense.
[ 23.01.2008, 15:14: Message edited by: Jimmy Big Nuts ]
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Surely you're only - what? - 28? 29? What makes your experience of Vietnam so much more direct and personal that you can tell Ringo whether or not his opinion means anything?
I'm 31. My dad is a Vietnam vet. My best friend's dad is a Vietnam vet. My other friend's dad is a Vietnam vet with no legs and missing hand. My 8th grade maths teacher was a Vietnam vet who still (I assume still, at least he did 18 years ago) flinched if someone dropped a book and it make a loud noise. I volunteered in my local VA hospital. I've laid flowers at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
Shall I go on, or do I still need to 'prove' that my experience is a little more personal?
EDIT: Not that I expect a reply. Almighty Thorn has spoken and with derision has passed judgement upon me that I am not intelligent.
[ 23.01.2008, 15:19: Message edited by: sabian ]
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Charlie Jowett...on his knees crying, spitting blood and teeth, people rushing to help him while his dad appealed to the umpire with "That counts as 'out', right?" Anyway. Charlie's a doctor now too, so I guess things worked out alright for him.
Ooh, I played against him at school and uni. Good leg-spinner, although he never liked the rising ball. And now I know why!
Anyway. I have a different perspective on this as my school was very academic, and if you played sport to any kind of level you were a thick meathead, until proved otherwise. Not even bothering to apply to Oxford or Cambridge just confirmed this, apparently.
The exceptions were the niche sports like waterpolo, judo, cross-country - these were acceptable diversions, as long as it didn't look like you were trying too hard.
There's a mindset within some sports that inhibits culture, of course - remember how Graeme LeSaux was gay because he read the Guardian? QED.
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No I think you pretty much declared your own lack of intelligence when you basically said that people who pursue academic success do so because they're too sappy and spineless to fulfil their dreams (the dream presumably that you feel is shared by everyone) of sporting prowess.
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No, what I said is that I didn't understand how sports is universally derided if you excel in it, yet being the bestest at writing an essay worth boasting about. Surely if someone is good at something, regardless of what it is, that person should be held in high regard for achieving more than mediocrity.
That was what I was trying to convey anyway, but hey, what do I know?
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quote:Originally posted by sabian: Surely if someone is good at something, regardless of what it is, that person should be held in high regard for achieving more than mediocrity.
That was what I was trying to convey anyway, but hey, what do I know?
Like the 9/11 bombings? I know this isn't a very popular opinion to hold, but for a terrorist action, hoowee! That kicked some arse. I talked to a friend of mine's Dad, who flies for BA, and he said that for two virtually untrained pilots to hit something the size of the towers with a passenger jet is pretty ninja.
See also - Harry Shippers. Greatest ever serial killer - and he's a Brit. *sniff* Does the heart proud.
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quote:Originally posted by Carter: Alright everyone?
Howdie... Oddly, I thought of you a few days ago... I can't remember for the life of me why now, but a few days ago, you graced my synapse.
One of the only things that ever have, save a few flashes of football and wrestling, apparently.
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quote:Originally posted by Carter: Like the 9/11 bombings? I know this isn't a very popular opinion to hold, but for a terrorist action, hoowee! That kicked some arse. I talked to a friend of mine's Dad, who flies for BA, and he said that for two virtually untrained pilots to hit something the size of the towers with a passenger jet is pretty ninja.
I was just impressed that they took over a plane filled with over 300 people with a box cutter. I mean, personally, if a 1/4 inch incision meant that I wouldn't plow headlong into a concrete pillar, I think I would have risked rushing the terrorist.
quote:Originally posted by Carter: See also - Harry Shippers. Greatest ever serial killer - and he's a Brit. *sniff* Does the heart proud.
Yeah, but he pegged out with a sheet in a cell... Quitter! He could have done some medical 'work' in prison, surely!?
[ 23.01.2008, 15:54: Message edited by: sabian ]
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quote:Originally posted by sabian: No, what I said is that I didn't understand how sports is universally derided if you excel in it, yet being the bestest at writing an essay worth boasting about. Surely if someone is good at something, regardless of what it is, that person should be held in high regard for achieving more than mediocrity.
That was what I was trying to convey anyway, but hey, what do I know?
But it works both ways though. Sports people adore stupidity and hate intellectualism (your posts reek of this sometimes, I don't think you can really disagree), and because being sporty and being physically strong and large go hand in hand, the more academically minded students tend to suffer intimidation. You probably think of this as character building, but for a lot of people it's a big big problem which stays with them for most of their lives. The only character traits this builds are insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, and neurosis.
For those with a predisposition towards sporting success, an environment which derides sporting failure and elevates those who achieve is probably an extremely positive thing. But for those who physically aren't able to compete, or simply have no interest in competing in those areas (the only sport I ever felt even remotely interested in doing when I was a kid that was taught in our school was Tennis, and I think we did Tennis about twice the whole time I was there) it's all negative reinforcement. Is it any surprise that the majority of people grow up to feel a resentment against our sporting champions. Especially when we see how much money they earn in relation to the amount of work they put in.
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quote:Originally posted by Carter: I talked to a friend of mine's Dad, who flies for BA, and he said that for two virtually untrained pilots to hit something the size of the towers with a passenger jet is pretty ninja.
I dunno aobut that. I managed it on my first go on Microsoft Flight Sim.
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