How I stopped liking the Raiders for awhile and began to relax… The Oakland Raiders did just enough bad to infuriate me. I went to two games. Both losing affairs. Since I am not a sports-aholic but I am one that appreciates a “commitment to excellence” (if I see one), I came away doubting. Doubting I would go back; wanting to find a new team to get emotional about. Doubting it could be the 49′ers (ever). Wondering if it could be the Colts. Then doubting that. I simply have a team that plays here that for the last few years has not played well. They are not really a team perhaps any longer; but a group of individuals that all show up the same day. Too f’ing bad I think…
Back in my days in the US Army, I learned that those that only show up as individuals will not win. The military taugtht me a few things in almost 9 years. I learned how to make a bed, how to actually clean a thing, and how to grow up. Growing up was the hardest thing and as I watch my own 14-year old, I can see the writing on that wall. For him to replicate and repeat, it will be difficult. Perhaps a “total institution” is the only way to learn certain mean life facts. Goffman was perhaps right on in so many ways as you read the wikipedia entry. In effect,
Some people view total institutions as places where rites of passage and indoctrination occur within their confines in such a way that the total institution acts as a secret society within the society, one which shapes newcomers willingly or unwillingly into a new and more or less permanent social role. This view is controversial.
Its a mean end game to take the innocence of youth and suck it right out and replace it with a new world view. A view radically different and made up of new replication and redundancy. Gone are the vacant Sunday afternoons and the no-goal other days. Instead, as I made my way though an institution, that other terrible “R” word came up. Responsibility. Fourteen year olds cannot easily disseminate that word. It carries that terrible pledge and requirement (geez another R word). All of these R words terrorize, cause disputes, and even… Growth.
When I suffered through my own R words years ago, I learned a few valuable lessons. Total institutions often replace our Gods and heroes with others. Those replacement heroes often have different mores and values and they require us to buy into a set of new goals. The new goals may taks us to new places and we may suddenly own new world views. Its really difficult to attain and actualize and grow in that institution; but if you don’t learn the hard lessons, the easy ones really don’t come either. People that have only stood on the outside of the military never really get “it”. They only see a life that has a certain coating on it and perhaps the external coating is sugary or perhaps it has a tincture of reality. At any level, they cannot really be challenged to the game and they never check in. That’s not to say they are checked out. They just have never found a set of replications and redundancies that cause stresses and even more R words.
One other lesson I learned in my years there was that I could never make anyone live to the standards I was forced to. Replicating those requirements is not fair nor just. Now I just wait around as time ticks on and watch him. Much like I watch the Oakland Raiders coming back each year. Replicating their worst football seasons each time. I’d like to tell each person on that team to look up and see that true fans really don’t care. We really root for the team as it is but winning has a connotation that we all like too. For my son, winning is not everything but it is the only thing. When he learns to lose, I have a feeling that new worlds of replication will suddenly open to his trembling hands.
