The Limits Of Competitiveness

Wanting to be the best will never make anyone the best.
Wanting to be the best will never everyone be the best.
The Best are who they are for being the version of themselves
that they could aspire to be at that point in their life
-as recognized by other equals and betters.

For as long as the best, and the rest, remain alive
then other times for excellence remain available for all.

This Sporting Life?

Sport is probably as old as human competition,
which dates it to, who know? 3000 years B.C.?
It was meant to entertain, whilst proving
the difference between losers and winners
for the given society it was part of.
Sport was also bound to militarism.

And yet sport has been very creative;
it was responcible for many human activities,
many of them positive. Each with it's own rules
through which players engaged with each other,
and bond with/coach each other too. Amazing.

The rot sets in when observers only look for winners
and care less about the rules by which the game is played.
This is where school and television comes in.
All I know about sport is via both of them;
neither inspired me. What school taught me
was how wealth begat confidence, both of whom
spoke louder than words and had the final say.

What television taught me about sport
is how it makes tense and drunk men
even more tense and more controlling,
to the anxiety of all around them.
The real winners were advertising.
There was no such thing as mentoring.
Only men getting more drunk, more tense,
and blind to effects of their testosterone.