So I tried doing this as I was watching some of these intense games, and I imagined, well, what would it be like if I didn’t care?
If I didn’t mind whether England wins the championship or not.
What if I don’t care?
What if it makes absolutely no difference to me?
And sort of getting a taste of it.
It’s almost like a Zen kind of mindset, where you’re beyond all concerns, and kind of like a Stoic resolution of just being completely ready to accept anything that is outside my control.
And maybe we can use that as some kind of training for life, that we can imagine letting go of that attachment to what’s out of our control.
If we’re able to do that with our favourite sports teams, well, maybe we can apply some of that to the intense battles in our life.
Of course, still fighting intensely for everything we can control, but completely letting go and accepting anything we cannot control.
But then, on the other hand, I think, well, would sports even be fun?
I mean, would it be fun if we didn’t actually care who wins?
I mean, you can sometimes enjoy a game as as a neutral, but it doesn’t have the same intensity as when you really get attached to a particular team and ride the roller coaster.
So riding the roller coaster is part of the whole joy of sports fandom.
So then does that apply to life as well?
Is there an argument to not be Stoic?
To say yeah, OK, it’s reasonable, it all makes logical sense, but it’s more fun to ride the roller coaster, and let myself get attached, and simply be OK with sometimes being happy and sometimes being disappointed.
So I’d like to hear what you think about this.
On the sports side, is it possible to have this kind of Zen or Stoic sports attitude when following sports?
Or on the life side, is there a case to be made against Stoicism, that we can kind of have that kind of sports fandom mentality, apply some of that to life, and just be OK with the roller coaster?
And I think that this also applies to things other than sports.
Like the biggest one being politics, which is a lot like the roller coaster of sports, but with politics, you have that feeling that oh, you could, you have your vote, or you can protest, or you can tweet about it, so there’s that sense that you can contribute in some small way.
So it’s not completely or near completely passive as it is with watching other men throw a ball or kick it.
So it’s harder to just accept that it’s outside my control.
Because as long as there’s that little bit of control that we can have over it, then it’s hard to give it up as like “Oh, I’m just not going to worry about it.”
But when something is ALMOST outside our control, maybe it’s debatable how much we should actually invest our emotions in it.
But it’s not easy to give these things up.
I mean, even when when I was watching the sports, and I tried to imagine “What if I didn’t care?”
There was a part of me that was like “Wait a minute.
No, you got to support your team.”
It’s completely illogical, but if I imagine not caring that my favourite team wins, it’s almost like it seems like I’m being disloyal, or maybe am I going to let them down?
And “No, I have to help them win.”
So my whole idea with this sports fan mindset is that it makes an interesting metaphor for how we view the ups and downs of life, and it kind of reveals something about how we emotionally react to those ups and downs.
By seeing how we react to the outcome of a sports event, or possibly politics or some other kind of big event that we’re observing, then we can maybe get some idea of how we might apply that in our own lives.
#stoicsports #sportsfandom #stoicism