A Little Perspective

[vladyfan 0]

SO, I am watching the Rangers/Sabres game. They had the Irish tenor to sing "God Bless America" for the crowd. The game is being broadcast overseas tonight. It is 3 am. He sings God Bless America and I am suddenly overwelmed with the obsurdity of the game. Caring so much about HOCKEY when we have people dying in a war....

Just hit home.

And Kudos for the Sabres crowd for singing along.

[GoWings1905 2,694]

Very nice post, I could not agree with you more. Hockey really is just a stupid game when you look at the big picture. I have a world of respect for those that have, are, and will serve this country. It is people like them that allow us to enjoy our many freedoms, like watching the Red Wings.

[aarond 0]

Sports are useful because they can provide us with a momentary escape from certain sobering realities of life, like war, famine, disease, catastrophes, bills, taxes, worrying about loved ones, stresses of our jobs, etc.

[glasgowcelticwing 18]

Sports are useful because they can provide us with a momentary escape from certain sobering realities of life, like war, famine, disease, catastrophes, bills, taxes, worrying about loved ones, stresses of our jobs, etc.

[Grypho 195]

Caring so much about HOCKEY when we have people dying in a war....

I like moments like that, because contrasting thoughts and concerns can help put things in perspective, as that experience obviously helped you with. However, I also think this can be a trap, because caring about different things is never an either/or proposition, and the contrasts, while vivid and sometimes glaring, need not represent an internal conflict. You could substitute other things for hockey to illustrate this -- "caring about [my children] [cooking breakfast] [having friends over tonight] when we have people dying in war"... I keep thinking of the classic non-sequitur guilt trip some parents used to lay on their kids back in the day -- "Eat your dinner, there are children starving in [enter starving children country here]". Yeah, I often thought back then. Eat all that food on your plate and they'll stop starving.

It's not like dropping or abstaining from any one of these things we also care about would solve another other thing you cared about more. If I thought giving up hockey would put an end to war, I'd give it up in a heartbeat - and I do love hockey. But we are not choosing between people dying and hockey (or movies, or any other recreation), nor is our participation in these things any measure of how much or how little we care about other things (and quite possibly with even more passion). I guess I'm saying that it's important to remember that we are capable of caring (and doing something about) many things simultaneously.