We're all on the Same Team

So I'm 38 and still a sports fan even though I wonder why the heck that's the case. Why should I care if the Braves, Falcons, or Bulldogs win or lose? What's the point? Their success or failure has no bearing whatsoever on my life, and yet in the midst of watching them, I do have to resist the irrational feeling that they do matter. If they win a big game, it feels magical and wonderful. There is a momentary feeling that all is right with the world although the rational part of me realizes that nothing has really changed for me as a result at all. It's not like I think, in a real and logical sense, that the team I root for deserves to win any more than the other team or that the members of my team are any better people than those on the opposing team. It's all very irrational, but there it is nonetheless.

If you really think about it, this syndrome of rooting for your favorite team is somewhat metaphorical for a lot of human behavior in general. You could substitute sports teams for religions for example. Any thinking, rational person must be able to realize that if they were born in a different place or of different parents, they might follow an entirely different religion, and yet so many people have the irrational impulse to believe that the way they worship God is the best way--or in some cases really the only way to do so.

The same could be said of peoples of different nations or different races, or even different families. To me, it seems endemic of human nature that we believe that whatever group we are a part of is the best, superior to all others outside of their group even in the absence or in the face of evidence to the contrary. How many wars, atrocities, and general human misery have come about because of this irrational impulse? And yet it's easy to see why this phenomenon exists. In an evolutionary sense, it's easy to understand how a group of people needed to bond together in order to survive. Loyalty to the family...the group...the tribe...had to be observed above all else. Otherwise the hostile forces outside of that group would destroy it.

But like everything, the same thing that helps us survive also has a destructive side. To wish to destroy "the other" or to fight what is outside of us in natural, but it's not always the rational thing to do. Humans have the capacity for great reason and rationality, but we don't always stop to think of using it. We all have the potential to be really smart and really stupid at the same time.

So with that in mind: Go Dawgs!!