|
The Germans have a name for it: Schadenfreude.
It doesn't translate well, but basically means a "secret, dark (emphasis
on dark, as in evil) desire to see others fail". Alabama fans are tense because
we've sat and watched other programs and their fans enjoy one episode of
Schadenfreude after another at our expense. It got so bad at one point
that many of us... yours truly included... began praying and hoping for something
terrible to happen to rivals... and the worse, the better... so that we would
have our turn to gloat, to point fingers and laugh, to rub their noses in it. Well, I was reminded recently, reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead,
why this is not the way to live a good life. When one invests this much hatred
into a rival, one lives one's life vicariously, second-handedly, in the fate
of another. Like it or not, the other becomes all-important, almost godlike,
in our lives. One loses all meaning to oneself in such hatred, and ceases
to matter outside of that hatred. But like the shadow that depends on light
to exist, so too do those who put so much stock into watching others fail
run the risk of losing themselves in the light of their own perverse scrutiny.
Hating others is a weakness and is self-defeating, for hatred requires cementing
oneself to one's object of hatred, enslaving oneself to the task of watching...
and sometimes trying to bring about... the downfall of the hated. So much
so that, even if such is ever accomplished, the hater finds oneself the merest
coherent fragment of the person they were, wasted, time lost... sometimes
measured in years and decades... hating. This is the worst type of second-hand
life, for it has no joy at all in it. But what has any of this to do with Coach Price, one may ask? Coach
Price's fate is not in anyone's hand but his employer's, no matter what anyone
here... or anywhere else... thinks. We should leave his fate to them. If
we choose to tie ourselves to his fate, whether we hope for the best or to
the worst, we are living the second-hand life. If we worry about what rival
fans think, we are living the second-hand life, because one has to invest
one's own worth in the eyes of others to even care. And especially why worry
about how we appear to those we should care nothing about? I will not tell
you how to live your life, but I would offer this advice for those seeking
relief from the constant, current pressure of being a Bama fan: Stop caring
so much. Stop caring about how we appear to others. Stop living your life
vicariously and live for yourself. Most of all, in a world where sports are
meant to be an escape from troubles (i.e., entertainment), stop letting them
become your life.
|