Sports

The top photograph to the right was recently taken in front of the Science Museum in Boston. The museum is hosting a corporately funded exhibit on Olympic sports history. The photo below it replicates a Nazi propaganda poster which was used at the time of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which were presided over by Adolph Hitler and are considered the beginning of the current commercial Olympic movement. This represents the same genre of propaganda used to equate teamwork with family with social responsibility.

The sad truth which history conveys is that genetic-family-centered, sports-centered societies are less socially responsive to social needs. In fact, these societies, like ancient Rome and ancient Sparta, were war-centered and brutal to those in their societies who did not measure up to the warrior classes. These societies, like the current American society, were fractionalized by gangs, political factions and family feuds.

As a taller-than-average boy with a father who was compulsively driven to conform to conservative heterosexual values, I was cajoled and then bullied into participating in basketball games. I had no aptitude or interest. The result was a widened permanent rift between my father, my older sports-minded brother and myself. I was verbally demeaned and humiliated within my family and in public for the remaining years of my childhood and adolescence in my working-class environment. While ineptitude at sports was the overt reason for ridicule, the subtext was my suspected homosexual nature.

This was valuable training for my personal evolution. I saw through the mindless popular myths about sports and masculinity and aptitude. I was able to work out that the men who were most driven to conform and comply with these myths are the same men who support war, child abuse, the abuse of women and the suppression of their own homosexual feelings. I can only assume, from my experience, that the women who are similarly driven are similarly motivated by rage and fear.

I firmly believe that organized sports as they exist are part of the problem, not part of the solution. I believe they are impressed on youth to produce compliant citizens who will join armies and fight real or virtual wars for the corporate powers. The merging of nationalism or global capitalism with organized team sports is glaringly obvious everywhere. I am sure my simple assertion of this opinion could throw indoctrinated team sports fans in to blind rage. This would simply prove my point, in my opinion.

The men responsible for creating democracy in modern times, men like Adams and Jefferson, did not play team sports. They did not learn the politics and philosophy of liberation on a football field or basketball court. Far from it. They read books, studied history and promoted cooperation of the many against the gangsterism of the few.

A world at peace would indeed have plenty of teamwork to do to correct the negligence and environmental corruption caused by corporate power. The time, money and energy spent on corporately sponsored team sports may eventually be put to better use. This would indeed be an evolutionary step for mankind.

Summer

In the 'developed' world, millions and millions of dollars are spent every Spring and Summer in attempt to prey on the insecurity of people, whom corporations view simplistically and cynically as customers. Advertising is focused on bodies and sex. Bathing suits and underwear adorn the buffed and flawless bodies of twenty-somethings everywhere you look.

This corporate self-hate industry, including diets, bogus exercise gadgets and unattainable goals for most people, makes many millions every year by inducing insecurity and offering magical solutions. Perhaps the best evidence to show the failure of capitalism as a model for human evolution is the massive number of obese and depressed people who sit and watch these advertisements over and over. Yet, obesity is rampant. Depression is rampant.

It is essential for individual human evolution to accept one's own being, including one's own body with its flaws and also its benefits. This acceptance is a first step to treating yourself with the respect and nourishment you deserve and need to advance in your life.

By embracing and accepting who you really are, you can then look to who you wish to be. This is just the beginning of a lifetime journey.

BuddhaToon: Compassion

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Righteousness

Right action is seldom easy and hardly ever popular. This is ancient wisdom. Last evening I was reading a memoir by Nichiren Daishonin (1222-1282AD), a revered Japanese Buddhist itinerant monk. The passage detailed his persecution by the local Japanese authorities of his time. He was being harassed and abused by the authorities for advising peace instead of war. Things have not changed much, have they?

Nichiren's advice is simple and clear: Do not set aside righteous action and thought for any excuse. Excuses are many and quite easy to adopt.

I agree with Nichiren's belief that all human beings, with the possible exception of the mentally ill and drug addicted, are instinctively motivated to right action. I have tested this at risk to my own health and well being as a nurse. More often than not, people respond to the message of righteousness. But, I have been kicked, punched and bitten enough times to know that the practice of right action has its risk at all times.

We may be leaving a period of darkness, in which our mentally ill and power addicted leaders have turned the whole American nation's back against right action in the world. I hope so. However, each individual must take daily right action as a practice for the human species to advance toward peace and survival. This is the ongoing challenge of mankind.