Meanwhile, outside the Colosseum
Those who can't create, recreate. Those who can't recreate, dictate.
What’s the problem with trans people playing sports? Is it that a man could decide to be a woman and compete as a woman and beat the other women? Or is the problem that sports are so important in our culture that it’s believable that someone might change their gender to win?
Sports are games at best, but more often extensions of the gaming industry. My wife works in a school, and she reminds me that sports are important for community building and resilience training. I agree. I did sports and they made me a better person and made me feel like I belonged. But if only there were some other activity that humans could do with the same goals. And maybe another product of some kind. Like food or shelter.
I wrote about this in a previous post called “Work Out,” where I romanticized hand digging to locate the water line from our well to our house. My 4-year-old son and 2-year-old girl both prefer to play with shovels and rakes outside and cooking utensils inside, rather than their piles of plastic toys. “The children yearn for the mines.” That’s another thing my wife says.
From an economic and ecological view, it’s silly for able-bodied people to buy cars and power tools and food, to then turn around and buy sporting equipment and gym memberships and medicine. Let alone tickets or subscriptions to watch other people play sports. We give our money to the auto industry and the healthcare industry, the mechanic and medical doctor. Could we replace big oil with elbow-grease, spectating with participating?
This is part of why I want to stay in Alaska, and in the house we’ve been renting in town for the winter. We live in the middle of walkable town that runs on hydropower. I can walk to the the grocery store, the post office, the hospital, and in five more minutes I can effectively be in wilderness past the edge of town, with the potential for hunting, fishing, and gathering. About which I’m still learning. But the abundance is there to subsist year-round, even to earn money to pay for electricity, internet, and rent. Norwegian immigrants founded the town for the good fishing close to a glacier that they could get ice from to pack their fish in. Before that, the Pacific Northwest supported the highest indigenous population density in North America. The food surplus here even allowed native art to flourish.
Our house was built 100 years ago, before cars were common, especially in Alaska, so it doesn’t have a driveway. We had to move our car every time it snowed so the streets could be plowed and sanded, and in the spring when the street sweeper came to sweep up the sand. It was a pain, and so is paying for insurance and car parts. The smart simple thing would be to get rid of the car. And the city snowplows and sanders and street sweepers. Buy everyone in town a pair of skis instead, dogsleds as public transportation, and pay borough employees better.
I bet the people who built this house had a big garden. And a boat at the dock a five-minute walk away, like we do now. They might not have had a motor on their boat either, trolling for salmon by oar, which I am working up to. It’s been done before.
So why don’t we grow up a little and play more with a purpose? Catch a fish, start a garden, or just walk to the store. Share the catch with our neighbors and ask them for help, and talk about something other than the Game. Quit caring about sports so much.
We’ve been fed professional sports since before the Romans watched lions eat Christians. And still, we act like sports are as important as life itself. While we sit on the couch in front of the TV, we get dopamine and adrenaline by choosing sides. And choosing who gets to choose sides. And we glare at each other across the Colosseum while the empire crumbles outside.