Game of Life

Didn’t have a dog in the fight, as an old parish priest used to say. My intention was to watch the game and enjoy the commercials. My surprise was how the game played out.

Every commercial break I noted the marketed product by name and any reaction out to the side; there were few comments. The start of the second quarter was noted as a time mark due to the low tight scoring game. Somewhere around the last five minutes of the first half, I sent a photo to a friend of our dog appearing to intently watch the game. We both lol’d over it.

Then they asked the question, “Whose winning?”

As you can see from the screen shots, it was a quick report, prompting Bob to change the channel to watch. The game became as important as the commercials. As our attentions on the game became more focused our chatting dropped off.  The next day we caught up on the overtime impressions.

For a game involving none of my favorite teams, but with two evenly matched opponents pushing each other to do their very best and respond in turn—  it was awesome. Being human, there were mistakes made, plenty of should have second thoughts and critiques from fans, players, coaches and owners afterward.

The disappointment for me associated with this year’s game came on Valentine’s Day;  knowing that in this  era we have people taking shots at each other because we no longer hold common decency and public manners in practice. Are we even teaching decorum alongside freedom and democracy? Freedom of expression doesn’t mean the same thing anymore. It’s one thing to express frustration and anger with words and quite another to forego the discussion about our feelings and take action that harms others.

There are no answers here. I prefer to keep things lighthearted and be amused by my friend and Bob who aren’t football watchers but found athletes playing at their best, and rising to the occasion on both teams,  compelling enough to change the channel and watch the game play out.

It makes me wonder. As a society are we doing the same thing in reverse? Watching the baseness of humanity play out on the sidelines, and how am I apart of that?