While choosing subject of my first post on this blog, I had selected squirrel in an instant and did not have any second thoughts. Reason I like them so much is their playfulness. There are no words using which I can overemphasis how much I love to watch them.
Many things have changed since I started this blog. I was supposed to be mostly taking bird photos then but turned out I spoke more with macro subjects, I also thought this blog would be largely photo driven but words started sneaking in more and more as way of expression. This place felt strange, nowhere place on day one and now it’s a comfortable home. these changes were both continuous and natural. However, something else, an completely unexpected change also occurred during this period. Back then, most of the time I spent was with birds, bees and butterflies and human-world mostly existed only in context of sharing my experiences here or at flickr. But then, in last one year, human- world has reclaimed me. or, I should say, someone just Stormed in and re-ignited my interest (and hope) wrt to the world. The Someone, to whom I just gave credit to alter direction of my thoughts so completely, was mentioned on this blog first time nearly 10 months ago - as the Sun I wanted in my sky.
Now, he appears to be willing to listen to anyone with good ideas in general and frequently everyone is explicitly invited to share ideas on specific areas too. I however, finding myself suddenly interested in a new world, am in learning mode. find I lack knowledge or ideas about anything. Plus, isnt it true that talking sense is a lot more difficult than what we imagine it to be when we are not actively trying to talk sense? Yet even in this purely learning stage my brain reacted somewhat strongly when I read one area where ideas were invited. Not because I had any idea to share, but because I still think there are no words using which I can overemphasis how much I love to watch playful life and value playfulness.
Views were invited on ‘Making India a Sport Superpower’. If not for the strength of the pull that has brought my attention back, my instant emotional reaction to this would have been wanting to escape to my old world where human affairs were nowhere in focus. Why bother about things you cant ever understand? ok, I survived the irritation but thought let me at least try to pen down why I think world is difficult to understand using example of my reaction to concept of ‘Sports SuperPower’.
I get into troubled waters with the term ‘Sport’ itself to start with. When I hear that word, I try to interpret it as something inherently good, something positive. But then I don’t get that feeling of goodness I expect when I see that most recognised sports people wouldn’t have earned recognition if they had not used most sophisticated tools, if they had not received best training (knowhow for how to ‘crack’ the game?) or in some cases if they didn’t also have killing spirit. I fail to associate words win and lose with my expected interpretation of Sport. These contradicting interpretation of Sport creates a very typical feeling like.. ok, have you played ‘Say the colour not word’? I may be technically incorrect but closest example of how I feel (or felt till I understood why this was happening) while interpreting the word Sport is how we feel while saying colour not word. two conflicting answers, incorrect one turning up first.
I think now however I have some idea why that happened. while trying to understand my irritation with word Sport, I suspected if it was a culture shock of some kind. I tried to translate the word Sport in Indian languages and then translated back to English. Word I got was Play. So there I was. Play- which arises out of playfulness – when there is an environment of security, confidence, mutual trust/liking and abundance of resources; Play- which strengthens the bonds between players, enhances fitness, may offer non-production environment to hone up physical and cognitive skills required at other times; Play- where joy experienced by ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ is no different as its joy of playing and counting win and lose is no one’s intention is of course very different from (or actually quite opposite of?) the ‘Sport’. Playfulness of course is also a much broader thing – it’s a state of mind you can carry in many different areas not just on playgrounds.
Second thing creating problem with me is trying to become a SuperPower – to my mind it sounds so much of a zero sum concept, almost feels disgusting. why try to become a SuperPower in any area? Why not try to become Strong? Strength using which one can help those lacking it also gain it and can forge synergies with other's strength. Now, you may point out that my argument is not fair in current context of becoming more powerful in sports. In current context, it should be simply taken as attempt towards producing more and more champions and for that all you need to focus on is to produce more and more players who are among the best in the world – and by doing it, others are in no way rendered weaker players – so what’s wrong?
well, I have nothing against a scenario of seeing myself in a country having more and more best players in the world. especially if I don’t double count my problem with concept of ‘Sports’ again here. I will be happy in similar way with such a scenario as.. say someone checking his medical test results find that he has a very good HDL level. A great indicator saying things are going well on some fronts. isnt it? But what if test results are bad? Should he rush to change his HDL level by directly targeting it? What happens if value of indicator is changed with use of external forces? will that also make underlying situation all well or just break the relationship between value of indicator and underlying situation? Well, in case of HDL it doesn’t seem to be making underlying situation better and, I feel case for altering number of sports champions – by directly acting on that objective may not be too different. What’s more, now you have one indicator less to tell you how you are doing in reality.
Btw, None of above means that I have even slightest doubt that our leader doesn’t values playfulness. I also have full faith that he will never walk or take the nation on paths of zero sum games. as well as, no one would imagine him to be naïve enough to target an indicator only. (Yes, I can happily call myself a Bhakt of our prime minister :-) ). So, probably this focus on what sounds not worthy of being an objective to me may be in some way just a tool in a journey to reach higher goals? ..whatever it is though, I cant read this phrase ‘Sports Superpower’ without some kind of irritation.
So, it seems I haven't made a lot of progress in being able to comprehend the way things work in human world despite my renewed interest to understand them. Fortunately though there is beautiful and not so difficult to understand Nature also around. Let me see what I find for the next post.
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