Archive for the ‘Minnesota Twins’ Category

I don’t have hope. That sounds really horrible on the surface, so I feel like I should explain.  You’ve undoubtedly heard of the Ancient Greek myth of Pandora’s box, wherein Zeus gave the first woman, Pandora, a chest that she was instructed never to open.  But Pandora’s curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, releasing evil into this world.  By the time she could get it closed again, only hope remained in the bottom of the box.  Most people think this is a good thing, that hope gives us the strength to move forward in the face of incredible odds.  I mean, none of us get out of this life alive, so without hope, life could just be a nihilistic slog.

But there’s a certain interpretation of the myth that holds that hope is actually Zeus’s greatest revenge on Prometheus for his treachery.  By making sure that Prometheus’s creation, humanity, retained its hope for the future, Zeus ensured that men and women would continue to be disappointed when tragedy and death befell them, as it eventually does everyone. To live without hope, then, is the ultimate freedom because you can simply enjoy any good that comes your way without creating unreasonable expectations about that good fortune continuing.  So with the Twins on pace for a second consecutive 90 loss season, I’m enjoying my lack of hope as much as I possibly can.

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If I’m being honest (and when am I ever not honest with you people), I couldn’t care less about the Olympics this year.  A lot of that probably stems from the fact that I’d just prefer to keep watching baseball every night than to tune into a big event where I don’t really know all the rules and am going to have to trust the announcers to educate me (what if I get stuck with the Tim McCarver of water polo?).  And I’d rather see the Twins play or listen to the beautiful cadence of (the now Twitterly aware) Vin Scully than root for the U.S. of A. to prove that it has the best putters of shot on God’s green Earth.  And I don’t care to see the NBA superstars of Team USA destroy Nigeria, like the Globetrotters taking on an 8^th grade traveling squad.  There’s not much glory in that.

It’s not that I’m not patriotic.  It’s just that I don’t see why I should care who the best hurdler or diver or marathon runner is.  I don’t understand the nationalist fervor that would have me rooting for a target shooter or rhythmic gymnast to somehow prove that the U.S. is #1, as though that weren’t (in large part) a function of having a large population and a willingness to funnel tremendous resources into our Olympic program.

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