yeah I know you did not ask!
Can you imagine how much better a world this would be if folks cared for things that really matter as much as they do sports?
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 4,575
…yeah I know you did not ask!
I’m not much of a sports fan. I used to follow college football some, primarily the University of Oklahoma. Mainly because it is difficult to live in Oklahoma and not follow them, like it is difficult to not follow the Cardinals when you live in St. Louis. However, I have noticed a trend the last few years… guys who are not interested in sports and who are not afraid to say it. It used to be that you were less than manly if you could not cite the latest win/loss record of whomever. What a nice trend. There is more to life that sports.
Get a grip Dude!
I have a 2006 Mazda MX-5 (Miata) that I drive mainly on weekends when the weather is nice. I bought the car from a
fellow my age who was marrying a younger woman with two small kids. He needed a more family friendly vehicle. He had had the car 9 months, and he was grieving about selling it. I gave him $19,000 for a car that listed for $27,000 before his hormones kicked in. It is the top trim line for this car, the Grand Touring edition. Hang on, hang on…. I have a reason for relating all of this and it is not bragging.
To give you an idea of the performance of this vehicle I quote from Car and Driver’s road test:
“First, this new model is the fastest ever Miata-we know, we know, Mazda wants to forget about that name. It scoots to 60 mph in 6.5 seconds, continues through the quarter in 15 seconds flat at 91 mph, and doesn’t stop accelerating until it hits 131 mph. With the exception of the 91-mph trap speed, which was equaled by the turbocharged last-generation Mazdaspeed model, each of those figures sets a record for showroom MX-5s. And this performance is hugely faster than that of the original 1990 model, which needed 16.8 seconds to cover the quarter-mile and topped out at 116 mph.”
It is not a muscle car, but a whole lot of fun to drive. It will hit 80 or 85 mph in 3rd gear (it has a 6 speed) before the car’s computer calls me stupid by shutting down the fuel flow before I blow a gasket. Continue reading “Get a grip Dude!”
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 4,234
…yeah I know you did not ask!
Life is purposeless. Life just is. Anyone beyond scrambling daily to just meet their existence needs knows this at some level. Most folks do not acknowledge it. Perhaps this is actually the healthier response, to remain somewhat delusional. However it is this unacknowledged comprehension that drives so much of human behavior. The mass psychoses that are the various religions stem from this. The fanaticism of the sports aficionado is a symptom of this. You can add anything that pretends to provide or reveal purpose to life. Being a creative species we have concocted many.
The question becomes what happens when this purposelessness is acknowledged. An argument could be made that this is a possible cause of depression, addiction, and a varied list of maladaptive behaviors.
The more I dwell on it, the only sane response when you are aware enough to acknowledge that life is without purpose is to live in the moment, to just be. Another possible response when you accept this is to provide your own purpose realizing that ultimately your purpose is an ephemeroptera.
Buying Vehicles via Internet
I’ve bought two cars via the Internet now. The first was a used car and the second was a new vehicle.
I found my 2006 Mazda MX-5 on Autotrader.com. It was 9 months old at the time. A guy about my age had it, but was marrying a younger woman with two kids. He needed a family car, and was sadly selling his sports car. She must have been quite a woman. I checked the Carfax report and that came back clean. The car was actually in Albuquerque and I was in St. Louis. However, I have a cousin in Albuquerque who is a car guy and into sports cars. He went by and took a look at the Mazda and drove it, and reassured me that it was in good condition. I made a very good deal with the gentleman because as “they” say he was a very motivated seller. That motivation and the fact that he had been having a hard time finding a buyer worked in my favor. I hopped on a plane, Continue reading “Buying Vehicles via Internet”
How different are dog fighting and football
A recent article in The New Yorker, Offensive Play How different are dog fighting and football? By Malcolm Gladwell, explores the effect of extreme contact sports like football and boxing on the human brain.
For an American male, I’m a bit of an anomaly. I do not really follow sports, except professional golf mildly. There are several reasons for this.
One would be that for me personally sports are more for the doing rather than the watching. I engage in several at a fairly incompetent level, but I enjoy them nevertheless.
Secondly, a while back, I just got bored with them. Continue reading “How different are dog fighting and football”
Would Buddha Drive a Porsche?
I recently bought a little sports car for all the materialistic, mid-life crisis reasons guys my age buy little sports cars. I used the typical rationalizations to justify my purchase. It gets better gas mileage; it has less impact on the environment, etc.
I knew it would be fun to drive, but what I have discovered that it is very much a “now” experience. When I’m driving this car, shifting through 6 gears, I am in the moment, and I stay in the moment. It does not seem to matter if I am on the interstate, a back road, or a city street. I look forward to driving to work each morning.
An old Buddhist saying is, “When you are chopping wood, chop wood.” When I am driving this car, I am driving this car. All of which made me wonder, “Would Buddha drive a Porsche?”