The Best

Jim Brown is widely thought to be not only the best fullback to ever play football, but also to be the best football player of all-time.

In a panel discussion today on television, Jim Brown along with other Hall of Fame football players discussed what it means to be the best. Jim Brown claimed that he didn't think he or anyone could be considered the best of all-time, and that it isn't even worth talking about. What really matters is looking at the characteristics of individuals, and then we have something we can talk about.

When Jim was asked, "Who is the best of all-time?" it struck me that our society has sickness based in being the best. Everyone has to be the best; and being less than the best is nothing. Of course, once you're the best you are hypersensitive to your position and have to defend it with intensive care.

There is no room for people who are just good at some things. As a soccer coach, I spend a lot of time evaluating my players by trying to find the right combonation that allows for us to get the most scoring opportunities, the best defense that keeps the ball away from the goal, the best arrangement of midfielders to win balls and to keep possession of the ball, and the forwards that work the best together to finish on scoring opportunities. Not only am I looking at team chemisty on the field, but I also try to give every player an opportunity to succeed. This means that everyone gets some playing time, even if they aren't as good.

In the end, managing positions and rotating substitutes into the game can be a nightmare. Ultimately, I have to judge each individual on their own merits and how they work with other team members. The interesting thing is that each player has something good to bring to the field. I have a very skilled offensive player who is quick and usually finds the back of the net on his shots. I have a very skilled defensive player that never lets an offensive player beat him on his backside and has a very clear understanding of where he belongs in the backfield. I have a player who is incredibly slow, but can hit shots from deeper in the field than everyone else. I have players who play hard and want to help their team, but struggle, and I have players that do well in most any position. I have strong, tall players, and short players that aren't developed yet. Despite all of this, I find that there is only one thing that really matters when I put any player on the field - do they play their position correctly?

I see it on my team, and I see it on the varisty team, and I see it on other teams, pro teams, and pee wee league teams in all sports. We over-emphasize the feats of individuals, and forget that everyone has something to offer.

So what is the best really? Someone who knows how to fit in just right in whatever situation he or she puts herself into. That doesn't mean the best is someone who is faster, smarter, more talented, more skilled, more determined, etc. It simply means that this person knows their role, and strives well to make the most of it.

In music, I was called the best in high school because I could always play my part well, play out on solos with good tone, and help the players around me. I knew my role, and it made everyone better.

In soccer, I was called the best player on the team as a defender because I played hard on every play, was the fastest player on the field, kicked the ball very hard, and never let anyone past me - it made the whole team better. I never once scored a goal in a high school game, and I lost a tie-breaker in a vote to be the best player in the conference.

These are situations where I started with some talent and worked incredibly hard to push myself to be my best... but truthfully, the enjoyment I really got out of the experiences were found in the collective experiences I had. I was my best, and my best rubbed off on everyone.

This is perhaps the biggest life lesson I've ever learned:


Working to the best of your ability in all that you do is the most important thing you can do for yourself and others.


Never be afraid of the challenge, but never make it about being better than others. Be better for others; or more importantly, be better for yourself.

My guess is that when Jim Brown retired at the young age of 29-years-old as the MVP of the league and superbowl champion, he knew this in his heart. He loved pushing himself, the challenge of competition that made him better (not proving others than they were worse than he), and helping his team out.

This attitude needs to be re-embraced in our society. Forget arguing who the #1 of all-time is, forget arguing about who is better than you and who you are better than. Just look for inspiration, what are the good qualities in everyone - from the greats, to the most awkward among us that continue to try despite knowing that the lack that which comes easy to others. Look for inspiration in yourself, and always find ways to find new challenges that force you to find new ways to awaken the best in yourself.

This is the spirit that gives life its vigor, the spirit my 90-year-old great grandmother in Wisconsin has that she's kept all of her life as she takes care of endless tasks in the house and garden with wicked determination. This is the spirit I wish to have well into the future into the later years of my life.

Responsibility

Responsibility is probably the most important characteristic any individual can have, and it is probably the least embraced characteristic of our society.

Case in point:

1. Our President can't admit to making mistakes.
2. Politicians blame everyone but their selves for problems.
3. Corporations are given more freedoms than people.
4. A culture of "myself before everyone else" has evolved. Communitarianism is losing to Social Darwinism.
5. Advertisements encourage people to indulge, and claim that anything can be fixed with another product rather than personal action.
6. Movies and television shows often feature characters and people who are able to succeed by skirting responsibilities in a humorous or clever ways. Some of the most common roles are the sympathetic villans (mobsters, thieves, tricksters, etc.)

The list goes on and on.

It is truly sad, because responsibility is the one characteristic that determines whether you truly make your life your own. When the breakdown of personal responsibility takes place in large numbers, so does the breakdown of community responsibility.

Our culture is sick. And nothing is proving that now more than Hurricane Katrina. When thousands of people aren't evacuated because of government didn't get buses in to ship people out, and when it takes days to give people food and water, and days to rescue people stuck in attics up to their necks in water filled with shit, and people in charge do everything that they can to blame the locals for these problems... we know there is a problem.

It has been really hard on me to think about what a failure of this proportion means to our society. I think about Nietzsche and his superman that he desperately wants to see rising above the herd. I think about the Jesus of the Bible who thinks that a rich man's chance of going to heaven is that of the ability to walk through the eye of a needle. Where are the people who take a stand and say "no, this is wrong?" Where are the people who say, "if I must lead, I must..." and show people what right and wrong really is.

Lack of responsibility is more than a personal catastrophe, it is a spiritual vacuum. How is it possible to live a meaningful life when responsibility is something you hide from?

My father always used to tell me to get my homework done before doing anything else after school. I always agreed with the sentiment (take care of your responsibilities), but I always tried to pace myself by rewarding myself with breaks as I went along. Typically, I do better work in smaller focused bursts than in marathon stretches, though I can do both. In any event, the prevailing philosophy I have always had is to take care of business. And if something doesn't get done, then its my fault and I accept the consequences.

Responsibility is ultimately about consequences. Whenever responsibility is irked, there are negative consequences. The more we fail ourselves and leave our responsibilities, the more we have to cover for it psychologically. This leads to negative behaviors, typically avoidant in nature.

Of course, these days, people from the lower classes are getting hit harder with more responsibilities than ever. Money doesn't got as far, and medical care needs are harder to get met. College is increasingly getting more expensive but minimum wage has stayed the same for 10 years nationwide. More and more people have to work as they go to college, and work 2 or 3 jobs.

But this is a sign that our national responsibilities aren't being met. In the "strongest nation in the world" we should do everything we can to help people achieve as much as they can. America, the land of opportunity, right? The failure is in the hands of those who are the richest. There is no failure of responsibility bigger than not doing what you can to help those who need it.

some basics

There is a strange line that I feel that I have always been walking since about the 7th grade. About that time I started wondering what the point of everything was. I'd stare at the stars at night and feel exceptionally small and think about how in this large system my existence meant nothing. And then, I'd think about what difference it would make if I were exceptionally huge or somehow near immortal or otherwise different. I determined that all value is arbitrarily created.

Given that, I had to find values for myself in order to stop myself from committing suicide.

Here are some things that I came up with:

#1: I can't commit suicide because doesn't change the nature of the problems of existence. If I committed suicide it wouldn't change anything and I would lose my chance to explore as much as I could before death.

#2: Good and evil are concepts people made to create order to ease their anxieties about living.

#3: I am ultimately responsible for all of my existence, regardless of whether I want to be. Ignoring this fact changes nothing.

#4: Drug-use and other behaviors that encourage people to stop analyzing their lives and existing mindlessly negates existence. In this sense, avoiding responsibility and embracing escapism is a form of cognitive suicide.

#5: Happiness is only achieved when working towards something that isn't finished yet. Otherwise life has become machinated and ceases to be life.

#6: Values are built by desiring ideals and striving for them. We choose our ideals based on experience, exposure, and reflection.

Given these things, I have spent many, many hours considering how to choose a meaningful lifestyle. I knew right away that being creative is part of a meaningful lifestyle. However, I also started to feel as though lives are increasingly too complicated which actually hinders living a meaningful life. As things grow over-complicated we fall into machine-mode.

There are lots of things that clog our lives, and certainly what we buy is a huge part of that. We live in a culture obsessed with owning things, and I have a hard time balancing what I should actually want to get and what is extra crap that just takes up space. How can you tell?

Certain things make sense to me... the utilitarian value of clothes and food. I justify musical instruments and equipment since I use them to be creative. Same with books... though I have a lot of books that I haven't read yet. But what about other things?

I'm not sure, but I try to keep in the back of my head questions about whether I'm really buying something that is helping my existence or not. Sometimes I just don't really know. But I think, at least, there is value in asking.

Musing about Flaws

I have been doing some thinking about how it appears these days that people are more and more willing to brag about their shortcomings. Our society is becoming less civil and community-oriented. At its heart, I think this has to do with a fundamental lacking of authentic assessment of ourselves leading to different sorts of over-compensation. Then, the questions are - how do people react when confronted with flaws within their selves? and... how should people react when confronted with flaws within their selves?

The difficulty in confronting flaws lies in the knowledge that we have done something wrong, bad, or evil - it indicates a lacking of something. The bigger the flaw, the more of a failure we feel we have become (regardless of how bad truly the flaw is objectively). So, we must make a choice:

1) Attempt to ignore the flaw(s); or
2) Attempt to make the flaw(s) seem positive; or
3) Attempt to change the flaw(s) by removing the negative elements or mitigating them.

People know themselves enough to know what their biggest flaws are typically. The process of attempting to ignore a flaw is classic Bad Faith reasoning. We wish to ignore the flaws because we don't want to admit any sort of failure or shortcoming. In reality, ignoring flaws does nothing for us. Our flaws will continue to stay as they are and become more pronounced. We're likely to create new problems as well, such as addictions to avoidant behaviors (alcohol and other drugs, obsessions with strangers/celebrities, etc.) The avoidant behaviors that become most attractive to those wishing not to face their selves are those which are the most intoxicating - those which we can drown in and see little else.

Those who wish to turn flaws into something positive are beyond those who are avoidant, but can easily be more self-destructive. Existential thought gives us a philosophical ground that shows us we can allow ourselves anything. Taken in the wrong direction, allowing ourselves anything means that you can do no wrong. However, it is impossible to live a meaningful life without deciding that which is good and striving for it. As such, changing things seen as negatives into positives can have one of two effects. 1) The unrealistic standard set for ourself previously has been demolished by an affirmation. 2) An affirmation of a destructive or otherwise negative attribute is reinforced and the foundation for a meaning system for which morals and ethics come from internally are eroded.

Thus, the system of affirmation is a dangerous ground. We can either grant ourselves new positive freedoms, or grant ourselves a free pass and lose a sense of moral and ethical grounding. Those who romanticize their flaws seek to transform their self into a image to more easily consume - it is another moment of Bad Faith. Once someone loses a moral and ethical center, that person either works to create a new one or turns sociopathic. The danger inherent in this approach then must be weighed by creating an authentic judgement of the perceived flaws at hand and what a reasonable person can do about those flaws.

For instance, for someone who sees their homosexuality as a flaw the process of embracing their sexuality is going to be much healthier than ignoring their sexuality or attempting to change their sexuality. However, for someone who habitually preys on women at night by raping them to embrace their behavior and mental state that leads them to that cycle is not suggested. Typically, most flaws lie somewhere between these extremes, so only honesty with the self in a evaluatory stage before judgement and action take place can guide us.

Finally, we can choose to face our flaws and attempt to change them. This is typically the most difficult choice, because we have to come to terms with our past and at times what we feel is immovable and unchangeable about our personalities. If some of these attributes aren't truly negative as we believe, than this process is not only wasted, but potentially very damaging in the long run to one's self-esteem.

If the flaw is accurately identified as something worth changing, then the effort to change the flaw must be done with a certain sensitivity to the self. I have to first accept my flaw and all of its effects. As many negatives things that have been done that I could feel make me a horrible person need to be accepted as ok to move on from. This is often the most difficult part of moving toward change. Typically, the more one feels their flaw is a significant hindrance to their life and others, the more shame they feel. Doing severe "wrong" in the past should only encourage us more to leave that past behind and start anew.

In all of my life changing moments, I had found that I reached a moment of clarity. It started with a declaration: "I do not like this." Then it followed with an evaluation: "Why don't I like this?" Then I made a choice: "Do I accept this thing about myself as ok, or should I attempt to remove this from my life?" Finally, then, is the move to action. During this period we should give ourselves a long-term goal and short-term goals to get there. Just as an obese person can't lose all of their excess weight in 3 days of exercise and starvation, we can't change ourselves in a blitzkrieg on our souls.

I think you will find that when reflecting on the strongest, most well-grounded people that you know, you will find these people are very patient with their selves and have a good sense of what their good qualities are and what needs work. They will continue to strive for the good, and look for ways to better theirselves (be it simply be their outlook or their actions, patterns, and habits as well). It takes a sort of balance... a range of acceptance and striving to change. We must pick our battles and work to continue to improve as each stage of our growth moves along. Otherwise we are failing our moral and ethical obligations to our lives. We must do our best to be the best we can be for ourselves since our lives are our own possessions and we only have one shot a living. This sense of responsibility is what Sartre and Camus attempt to balance with the overwhelming freedom discussed in their philosophies. And, truly, with each positive choice and movement towards our self-defined good we will find our lives feeling more fulfilled - we will have more meaning.

The importance of this cannot be overstated now in this alienating world we live in that offers so little in the way of authentic opportunities to create meaning from external sources. Let's work on ourselves without fear or too much criticism. It is one of the few battlegrounds left that has something to offer.

What this is about

My girlfriend just started writing a blog about her struggles with fitness and I realized that I have some things to say also.

Physically, I've had few problems in my life. I'm a natural athlete with a high metabolism. Emotionally, I'm solid... I rarely lose my head or feel out of control. Mentally, however, I find it so hard to be satisfied.

What limits me? Feelings of smallness and inability to affect large problems in the state, country, and the world. Feelings that corporations and the wealthy class are able to do whatever they want without consequenecs. Feelings that no matter what I do with my life that I'll be on edge and continue to struggle with alienation.

Decadence is the appropriate label for the world we live in now. There is a sort of decay in meaning that is eroding everything. The source of this decay is abstraction. The fundamental ties that once ground us into our lives are falling away. For instance, we used to have a strong connection with our labor. We would spend our time making things and we'd know how those things worked, what they were made out of, and we'd have personal connections with those objects. Now, everything is mass produced, and we have absolutely no connection with the objects in our lives... However, these objects now represent us more than objects ever had previously.

What is the primary measurement of a man? I wish it was his character, his creativity, and contributions to society and his family. Unfortunately, instead we are seeing increasing compartmentalizations of people, reducing them to an image... an externality so potent, that even within the individual the primary core of where self is created is external. The reliance on externalities makes us all, by definition, lost.

Alienation is the hallmark of our decadence and it makes it hard to care about ourselves or others. We can easily fall into the spectacular images of the media and drown in drug use. Drown in food. Drown on the couch in the loving arms of Oprah and Pat Robertson.

We need to feel power, but there is little to authentially feel power from. We are forced to create to overcome this system, and most of us don't have the tools to do this. I'd like to think that I have the tools to do this, but in the last 2-3 years I've felt as though I'm losing my edge. I've lost the focus I once had.

I've begun to get it back. I've returned to the desert and I've again started treating my body as it deserves to be treated. The better the body is treated, the better our mental and emotional health can be. My focus on eating better and exercising has put me into a place where I feel that I am in better health now than I ever have been.

But this is the beginning. I have been avoiding the contradictions of existence and the absurdities of modern life that once inspired me to write. This journal will be there for me to put my thoughts out about how to get this place again, about how to have a healthy existence in a world not built for health, about what those challenges are, and general observations.