Consider these Oft used so called PC, yet vague decriptors when referring to individuals of a certain persuasion or affiliation and you realize how lame it sounds-
1. You and your loved ones
2. Men and women in uniform
3. People familiar with the matter
4. Highly placed sources
5. Significant other
Switching gears I began wondering why certain sports or what are defined as a sport get notoriety to where people pay lot of money to see it in person or on other mediums sponsored by large advertising budgets.
Consider the 100 m dash and all other dash variants and you just might see how insane this activity seems. At the end of the 9 or so seconds it's all over and yet it enthralls the minds of many. What exactly does one achieve after running very very fast or cycling till the cows come home that they become national heroes? Not to mention some are later found to be lacking in moral fiber and the same nitwits that paid their last paycheck to see these clowns are up in arms about shattering their role model.
Large sporting equipment makers pay top dollar to have these athletes once from an impoverished continent wear their footwear.
But consider the trapeze artist on a high wire or the contortionist in a circus and there is not that adulation. What makes some act of human exertion Olympian vs the other? It's marketing.
I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language. Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds. The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic. Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'. This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...
Read Umberto Eco for his take on why all organised sport watching is a fairly useless activity. Worse, it takes away from actually doing something useful to yourself or to others. Except making some (not all) athletes rich, as you point out.
ReplyDelete