Cracker and Leftover Salmon--"Get On This" (mp3)
Of the first 10 matches played during the 2010 World Cup, eight of them have unfolded in front of my eyes, in front of my television or computer or cellphone. I have seen significant portions of the other two. These are also the first soccer matches I have ever watched on television or other media (unless you count that show we watched in Korea that involved highlights of a series of goals being scored over and over and over while the Korean commentators did their best to be Chris Berman in Korean).
I contrast this with my teenage years, when I asked out a girl simply because she sat next to me in driver's ed all summer, when I started to like David Bowie's music simply because my brother got tired of him and left all his records when he went to college, when where we ate or drank on any given weekend evening were determined by whether a stoplight was green or red as much as anything else. I tried this because my friends tried it. I went to that because there was an extra ticket.
Not that there's anything wrong with allowing things to happen by chance. Charting out a romantic path designed to end up with a spouse determined by a carefully-selected set of criteria could border on the pathological.
Of the first 10 matches played during the 2010 World Cup, eight of them have unfolded in front of my eyes, in front of my television or computer or cellphone. I have seen significant portions of the other two. These are also the first soccer matches I have ever watched on television or other media (unless you count that show we watched in Korea that involved highlights of a series of goals being scored over and over and over while the Korean commentators did their best to be Chris Berman in Korean).See, mere weeks, days, hours, or minutes before the tsunami of World Cup hype swept over all of us, I decided to "get into" the World Cup for the first time. I like to think I did it on my own, aided by an ever-growing enjoyment of watching my school's team play soccer and armed with the World Cup issue of Time magazine, which I took to lunch one day and read cover to cover. That served to get me very quickly up to speed on the big name players, the most promising teams, the current context of the sport both in and out of Africa. And off I went.
And now I'm hooked. And conversant. And anticipating continuing pleasure from this decision.
Typical comments from people who know me well:
1. "I don't know who you are."
2. "You mean you're going to watch them kick a ball around for two hours and hope that one of them goes in?"
3. "Dad, you're being annoying."
My latest revelation, in an ongoing series of revelations about adulthood, is that, sure, life is still random, improbably, ridiculously concidental or arbitrary, but at some point we realize the power of our own intentionality.
We can simply decide to pursue something, large or small, that we've never been interested in before, and we don't have to have any previous inclination towards it. I used to think that a passion, or even a passing fancy, had to develop naturally, organically, as a matter of course. That always at the back of it, whatever it was, there had to be a kind of inspiration, a muse. I thought that we couldn't will ourselves to change, to love someone, to become something that we weren't without an overriding sense of it being supposed to happen. Now, perhaps because, as Marvell wrote, "at my back I always hear/Time's winged chariot hurrying near," I think I can make a decision to do something both immediately and persuasively on something as little as a whim or as much as a cause.
We can simply decide to pursue something, large or small, that we've never been interested in before, and we don't have to have any previous inclination towards it. I used to think that a passion, or even a passing fancy, had to develop naturally, organically, as a matter of course. That always at the back of it, whatever it was, there had to be a kind of inspiration, a muse. I thought that we couldn't will ourselves to change, to love someone, to become something that we weren't without an overriding sense of it being supposed to happen. Now, perhaps because, as Marvell wrote, "at my back I always hear/Time's winged chariot hurrying near," I think I can make a decision to do something both immediately and persuasively on something as little as a whim or as much as a cause.
I contrast this with my teenage years, when I asked out a girl simply because she sat next to me in driver's ed all summer, when I started to like David Bowie's music simply because my brother got tired of him and left all his records when he went to college, when where we ate or drank on any given weekend evening were determined by whether a stoplight was green or red as much as anything else. I tried this because my friends tried it. I went to that because there was an extra ticket.Not that there's anything wrong with allowing things to happen by chance. Charting out a romantic path designed to end up with a spouse determined by a carefully-selected set of criteria could border on the pathological.
But there's also nothing wrong with a later-life decision to become a reader, as a friend of mine did, or to take up canning, as I did, or to switch political parties just to get a sense of the other side of the arguments or to jump ship to a new career or a new location.
A sudden interest or passion will, of course, not sit well with some of those we know. It is Emerson, as always, who reminds us of this circumstance: "[T]he eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them."
Why? Well, think about it. New interests, new directions can lead to new acquaintances and associations, and there is nothing more threatening to those who already know us and have established our place in their lives than to think that the balance of that applecart might be upset.
In my simple example, if I go gung-ho for soccer, then I am, perhaps, more inclined to spend time with and to put my emotional energy into those who also share that interest. And there are only so many hours in the day. And that is threatening. When we will ourselves into some new passion, it is almost as if we are suggesting to those who know us, either get on board or get left behind. In my simple soccer example, this is neither likely nor a particularly serious concern. But, when we go in some new direction of greater import, feelings, no doubt, will be hurt.
In my simple example, if I go gung-ho for soccer, then I am, perhaps, more inclined to spend time with and to put my emotional energy into those who also share that interest. And there are only so many hours in the day. And that is threatening. When we will ourselves into some new passion, it is almost as if we are suggesting to those who know us, either get on board or get left behind. In my simple soccer example, this is neither likely nor a particularly serious concern. But, when we go in some new direction of greater import, feelings, no doubt, will be hurt. Careful readers of this blog might be tempted to juxtapose this post with the one I wrote on narcissism a few weeks ago. Are that critique and this affirmation two sides of the same coin?
I'd like to ponder that, but Italy is playing Paraguay.
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