Teach Us To Care, And Not to Care
Feb. 5th, 2007 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmatonakI really don't like to compete.
Let me refine that: I dislike competition that leads to serious consequences. I don't like winning if my winning means something bad is going to happen to another person. I enjoy the thrill of victory as much as the next guy, but having to look at someone who was counting on winning and got crushed kind of takes all the fun out of it. So I rarely play to win in situations where it matters if I win or not.
I was raised to believe that winning is good, that achievement is what gives a person worth. In order to reconcile that with the previous paragraph, I've always tried to achieve in arenas where my success doesn't have to cost anyone else anything. In the real world, those are hard to find.
Sometimes all of this makes me feel like a big wuss, like I can't compete and I justify it by saying I don't want to compete. So every so often I just go out and try to crush someone at something. And sometimes I lose, and that feels like confirmation that I can't compete and my scruples are just sour grapes. And sometimes I win, and someone else loses, and... they are sad.
Occasional lip-service to the contrary, everyone likes a winner and nobody likes a wuss. Almost every aspect of life can be tied in some way to competition. Maybe a better way to say this is that almost every aspect of life presents opportunities to cede "victories" in favor of others.
And this sure isn't very manly, this attitude of mine. But I don't want to bash someone's head in with a rock just to prove I have the strength of will and the ruthlessness to do it.
My country's at war right now, but I can't even really hate those people. I can't connect a collection of truly hateful acts, whose perpetrators I loathe, to the people we are actually fighting. If you can, I don't mean to challenge that in any way. I am not a pacifist, and I am not, at this time, arguing about the war. I'm saying even that isn't something I can commit to with a whole heart.
There are no monsters to fight. There are just people. And I have nothing against people, really.
Let me refine that: I dislike competition that leads to serious consequences. I don't like winning if my winning means something bad is going to happen to another person. I enjoy the thrill of victory as much as the next guy, but having to look at someone who was counting on winning and got crushed kind of takes all the fun out of it. So I rarely play to win in situations where it matters if I win or not.
I was raised to believe that winning is good, that achievement is what gives a person worth. In order to reconcile that with the previous paragraph, I've always tried to achieve in arenas where my success doesn't have to cost anyone else anything. In the real world, those are hard to find.
Sometimes all of this makes me feel like a big wuss, like I can't compete and I justify it by saying I don't want to compete. So every so often I just go out and try to crush someone at something. And sometimes I lose, and that feels like confirmation that I can't compete and my scruples are just sour grapes. And sometimes I win, and someone else loses, and... they are sad.
Occasional lip-service to the contrary, everyone likes a winner and nobody likes a wuss. Almost every aspect of life can be tied in some way to competition. Maybe a better way to say this is that almost every aspect of life presents opportunities to cede "victories" in favor of others.
And this sure isn't very manly, this attitude of mine. But I don't want to bash someone's head in with a rock just to prove I have the strength of will and the ruthlessness to do it.
My country's at war right now, but I can't even really hate those people. I can't connect a collection of truly hateful acts, whose perpetrators I loathe, to the people we are actually fighting. If you can, I don't mean to challenge that in any way. I am not a pacifist, and I am not, at this time, arguing about the war. I'm saying even that isn't something I can commit to with a whole heart.
There are no monsters to fight. There are just people. And I have nothing against people, really.
