“It doesn’t matter if we win or lose, it’s how we play the game.”
An old cliche that finally made complete, visceral sense to me this past week.
Covid has kept family and friends apart for so long that simple occasions that we once took for granted now feel like an historic achievement.
I got a bunch of family and friends together to play a simple kickball game. There were people present I hadn’t seen in a few years, some for a decade.
With heat, mosquitos, and small children (I had 2 toddlers to corral), I didn’t give us great odds to get though an inning let alone an entire game.
But everyone there seemed to understand the ever rarer ability for occasions like this to happen in these Covid times. Even the young ones, 7 to 14, hustled to their field positions or stepped up to the plate in pro timing with a sense of importance and urgency.
We got through 7 full innings with a very productive game of 3 outs or 5 runs per inning: double plays, home runs, peg outs, force outs, and more.
The young ones weren’t given special treatment so when they got on base or forced an out, there was a real sense of achievement and not a cheap pandering feeling.
I happened to be the final out of the game (I got pegged out representing the tying run). And when we lost, I had perhaps a brief sigh of failure before turning to the overriding sentiment we all shared: SUCCESS! WE HAD COMPLETED A GAME!
I had participated in one of humanity’s longest standing art forms: Sport. Whether to stay physically fit, for enjoyment, or to practice necessary survival skills like hunting or combat, Sport is an all time great achievement of our species.
Knowing I had been part of a successful execution of a single game of kickball was so satisfying, I did not care at all that we had lost.
This is why the Olympics are so important. Sport is happening. Peace is happening.
So much value is placed in winning and that is well and good (it is PART of Sport: to win), but if we do not value the ability to even execute sports, if there is no greater society to functionally host, or if cheating destroys the entire foundation and spirit of a game… then winning means nothing.
The real victory is having any games at all and completing them properly.
This goes for politics as well: the real victory is having a system that allows for fair elections and functioning government at all.
My biggest takeaway from this simple, kickball game is that I will teach my children to play hard, compete with everything they are capable of, and give every last ounce of life to their pursuits – Sport or otherwise; but to value the higher morality most of all: that we even get to play the game – Sport or otherwise.
(No Claps Yet)
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