THE ILLUSION OF SPORTS
Wherever the human being views the intellect more important than the spirit, that is, places his intellect in command over his intuition, there lays a breeding ground for illness, as no other result can come about from a bad seeding. Instead of acting as a human spirit inside matter, ennobling everything around him, as is his mission, he acts as an exclusively material creature, as if there were nothing spiritual within him.
Thus, everything that is originally good, useful and beautiful, after passing through his rationalistic fingers becomes bad, harmful and ugly. This process is clearly evident in the art world of today, be it painting, sculpture or music. Art, over the past centuries has left us as a legacy of extraordinarily beautiful objects, today, art is a shapeless mountain of garbage, chiseled out over the 20 th and present century, as cold reasoning has reached its apogee and has run over everything in its eagerness to standout by itself assuming qualities it does not possess. The intellect has made man's heart its footstool, and the living spirit its slave. And now as a consequence, has reduced all art forms that were once magnificent, into a sanitary wasteland. The forms acquired by contemporary painting and music, generated purely by neurons dispense with quality indicators. Not because there are many to choose from, but because they haven't found any that do them due justice. As these things are always well below the scope of the most recent and perspicacious dictionaries, making it impossible to find adjectives adequate enough to reasonably qualify such horror.
However with only the flickering torchlight of the intellect to illuminate the treacherous trail that was opened in matter, to face it in his own way, modern day man has even twisted the basic law of movement in Creation that states that something can only remain complete and healthy if kept in continuous movement. Applied correctly to the physical body, this law would always maintain it healthy and vigorous. But the intellect has transformed salutary physical movement into sport. And, thus, what was healthy has become morbid once again.
The art of sport! It has been increasingly praised and highly considered the world over. It has been exalted with hope everywhere, sung in praise amongst peoples, and made divine with Olympic emotion by the nations of the world! How could it be harmful?… For those that have eyes to see, the present aggrandizement of sport is just one more appalling sample of how the concepts of right and wrong are completely twisted in our time. Of how the spiritual rigor mortis has already involved almost all of humanity, extinguishing its nobler aspirations and compressing its field of vision making it narrower and narrower.
Sport is indeed harmful, because it is based upon competition. It does not have as its principal aim the conservation of bodily health, but its only aim is to show who is the best in a particular modality. Winning is not important, competing is!, the reviled disciples of Coubertin, heralds of the ennobled sport, will quickly rebuttal. But no, this is completely untrue. For any sportsman on this planet winning is indeed important. Always. And even if there are some that really believe in this utopia, in the deepest recesses of their hearts, not only is there the self scolding between hiccups and sobbing eyes after losing first place, there is also the same belief for winning, otherwise they would be equally insane.
Compete… for what reason? To one day have the honor of climbing to the highest point of the podium, and proudly sharing it with the flag of your nation waving above the others? To be emotionally moved on seeing all the silenced enemies around you, forced to listen to the national anthem of your country, with heads bowed, obliged to recognize the triumph of your nation? To be driven around in a fire engine truck and shed the tears of a hero? Is that patriotism?… Is this how young people should waste the best years of their lives by training? Is this why they are constantly submitted to recurring surgeries to repair damaged muscles and tendons? Is this why special wear and powerful anabolic steroids are developed? It this why famous sport trainers; with their warmonger strategies are hired by their weight in gold? Is doping then a spy tactic? Are dislocations and sprains impressive war combat decorations for bravery in action?…
Isn't it pathetic to see gray-headed, tie clad men, argue quite seriously over different aspects of football in a debate program, very much convinced in analyzing moves and giving diagnosis and forecasts; quiet degrading indeed. It would even be hilarious, if it weren't so ridiculous: Incredibly ridiculous. What true good can a nation achieve by winning a World Cup, a Formula 1 title, or a heavyweight-boxing belt? Popular joy? National pride? A country must be in pretty bad shape if it needs this frivolous stuff to make it a worthy country, to vivify its self-esteem. Sad is a nation that carefully separates part of its ever-decreasing revenues to see its sport's idols swimming in rivers of cash at a distance.
And it is sad that that the whole of humanity, that has spiritually fallen to such depths, being unable to see the deplorable role it exercises when ennobling these worthless things, fruits of a cunning materialistic intellect, in detriment to spiritual betterment. It is the deplorable attitude of this world's sporting nations that sees in a marathon runner, arriving at the finishing line almost dead, as the best example of human tenacity that overcomes all obstacles, of the Olympic ideal elevated to its higher degree. That stumbling athlete, till today a target of praise throughout the world, did nothing more than commit a serious crime against his body, by taking it to a state of complete feebleness, to the point of almost suffering a syncope in the awaiting doctor's arms close at the finishing line. The doctor rooted for the courageous youth, courageous to the extreme, to be able to overcome the Olympic challenge that lay ahead of him that would have only cost him his life. Both are criminals, and the entire world that cheered on, accomplices.
A repeatedly powerful argument in favor of sport, without the dependence on educational experts, states that it distances the underprivileged youth from violence and drugs. Really? The practice of sports has the power to detour them from the walls of FEBEM(1), or to remove them from there and show them the path to a worthy and honest life? How many young delinquents and drug addicts leave properly recovered from reeducation centers, where sports are practiced on a daily basis? How many of them leave there transformed in their inner selves, to the point of returning into the conviviality of society, interested in the well-being of his neighbor?… Not one single creature who is evil in his inner being, of a bad nature, manages to erase the violence impregnated in his corrupted soul with jumps and running, neither is he able to change the syringe for a ball, or for whatever sport it maybe. In his entire being, the addict does not leave drugs for sport, but he continues dispersing himself with both types of narcotic.
Competitive sport is always harmful, it has never contributed to improve an iota of the inner self of the human being on the contrary it only instills in him the desire of excelling at all costs. This competitiveness continually nurtured by hundreds of million of humans has its effect in the spheres of the ethereal matter than surrounds us. It surpasses the limits of the stadiums and continues exercising its deadly influence on the countless number of human souls that carry within themselves a similar dependence. These end up being literally besieged by these influences, impinging in them the permanent need to compete and continue competing, to win in life and stand out from the crowd at any price.
The global effects of this insanity are terrible. As a result of this today, almost all of humanity see themselves as competitors in everything, be it loyal or not, a simple traffic disagreement can easily end in tragedy, and traffic itself has become a racetrack for the overburdened day to day drivers. A defeat in an innocent domino game or in a card game has the stakes to cause a heart attack for any of the infatuated players. A goal at the last second of the full time is reason enough for a scuffle and death amongst great masses of competitors, called fans. Fanatics, in the pejorative meaning would be the correct term for this type of mob. Large or small companies no longer aim to improve their products in order to guarantee their economic survival, but they prefer to destroy their competitors, squash the inconvenient competition. An important businessman affirmed that if his competitor were drowning, his first act would be to thread a hose into his mouth. Declarations like these are considered dictates of wisdom, highly inspired maxims, and used in executive improvement courses. As if these champions of stress had not been taught, since a tender age as children, to be prepared for a highly contested fight in the frightening competitive world that waited them, an ambush in waiting, just like a bugbear. It is important to compete! That is the current slogan of the human race. Countries compete uncontrollably amongst themselves, in arms, space, commerce and cultural races. They compete continually. All of them compete, and nobody lives.
This is the result of competition and frantic competitiveness, the competitive world in which we live, of which sport is its main stimulator and sponsor. This is what humanity at the moment has to present, at the end of the period conceded for its development. A huge planetary stadium, with billions of unhappy competitors, spiritually void, this is the victory trophy it can raise in triumph to its Creator, as the most developed fruit of its evolution.
However, if it could clearly see what it has generated for itself with this effort, if it could have a small glimpse of what awaits it as reciprocity, it would quickly change its motto to: It is important to survive! Survive spiritually, to subsist now, at the time of the final reckoning.
To dream a little is not wrong, as it does not stir any competition. But while few still allow themselves to dream whilst awake with an improbable, perhaps impossible improvement in humanity, this one lives dreaming about his own greatness, wrapped up in the illusion of his own importance and his sporting achievements. Soon, all of us will awake.
Roberto C. P. Junior
1. Brazilian penitentiary system for juvenile delinquents. Return