Speaker: Rugby, Racing and Emotions
40 Responses
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Coping, in this country at least, means hiding your tears of pain from your mates. It means not feeling, not experiencing, being tough and hard.
Alternatively, this song by US psychotherapists Garfunkel and Oates may help put the World Cup into perspective (not that I necessarily endorse some of the unnecessarily honest and -- ahem -- cruel observation they make here):
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emotion that carves memories into the mind, connecting neurons
Thats one way of explaining it
the cynical among us may condemn rugby, and our love of it to being an “opiate for the masses.”
Your misquoting Marx is all your doing.
But it’s a hell of a drug.
No its not
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Fast forward to 2007 and I still remember sitting with my head in my hands, genuinely scared I was going to throw up on my carpet, the shot of Dan Carter looking similarly ill, sitting in the grandstand as white as a sheet, burned into my brain by emotion.
It was a bit grim, especially because it seemed so cosmically unfair. I went for a bike ride and made a nice brunch.
And then there’s the worst 20 minutes of my life. Suspended in the air on temporary seats at Eden Park, watching as we fumbled and muscled our way through the longest quarter of rugby in the history of the game, while 60,000 people wrung their hands, and screamed unintelligible expletives in sheer gut-wrenching frustration, followed of course by the elation best captured by Israel Dagg and Corey Jayne’s snow angels, as they lay ecstatic in the piles of tinsel on the hallowed turf.
That actually was terrible. Less because of the prospect of the All Blacks choking again – I follow the game keenly, but it is just a game – as much as the tedious orgy of hand-wringing, bloviating and recrimination that would have followed. [See: 2007.] I still felt slightly ill afterwards.
What I love about sport is its meaningless. If the All Blacks win or lose, life carries on.
Exactly. If I'm not actually involved (which is a wholly different level of commitment) then no actual injury has been done to my life and I should get on with it.
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There's also much fun to be had in adopting a temporary allegiance. I was Welsh for a couple of hours and it was as good a mood-enhancer as any pill. Cymru am byth.
More seriously, the whole issue of fans losing perspective needs to be ... well, kept in perspective. Just because the TV reporters are stalking the usual venues and picking the silliest faces for their report on how "the nation" reacted, doesn't mean we have to buy into that story. It matters a lot to many, it doesn't matter absurdly much to anything like as many as we're told.
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Kyle MacDonald, in reply to
Not a fan then, I take it?
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Kyle MacDonald, in reply to
I agree. This post came about because of an actual request from TV news to talk about "how to cope". Got me thinking about the hype, what matters, why, and how it doesn't at all really.
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I remember the early morning news in 1999 when the NZ team lost to France. Was so pleased because it meant that the Government would probably loose the upcoming election. And they did.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
I remember the early morning news in 1999 when the NZ team lost to France.
Would that be when there was talk of a special counseling hotline to help rugby tragics deal with their grief? Delivering a Mark "Chopper" Read "harden the fuck up" message would have been fun for a while I'd imagine.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
It matters a lot to many, it doesn't matter absurdly much to anything like as many as we're told.
No. Although in the case of, say English football fans, I think it's fair to acknowledge that it can be deep and cultural.
I worked with a guy in London who had supported lowly Wimbeldon FC since childhood. He remarked to me afterwards that the half during which Wimbledon clung on to a 1-0 lead over Liverpool in an an FA Cup final (and the Dons' captain and keeper Dave Beasant saved a penalty!) was "the worst 45 minutes of my life".
Otoh, I was at that game (courtesy a Kiwi friend who'd decided to support Wimbledon and lucked in big time) and what struck me afterwards was the grace of the Liverpool supporters as we left the ground. They very much congratulated us personally, as if it were our victory too. I've never forgotten that.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
There's also much fun to be had in adopting a temporary allegiance. I was Welsh for a couple of hours and it was as good a mood-enhancer as any pill. Cymru am byth.
I felt a bit guilty abut how Georgian I felt when they beat Tonga. I mean, Tonga's local.
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simon g, in reply to
Although in the case of, say English football fans, I think it’s fair to acknowledge that it can be deep and cultural.
Yes, and there are many examples overseas of sport meaning more to the fans than rugby does in NZ. I'm not saying that is necessarily a good thing - there are stories every week of crowd trouble from Belgrade to Buenos Aires - but if our media are going to talk about "passion" and "religion", then it should be acknowledged that there are plenty of agnostics.
The Auckland Blues and Newcastle United are two failing 'football' teams, in their respective national codes. One plays in front of a vociferous capacity crowd, every week without fail. The other runs out to a half-empty, sleepy Eden Park.
There are other, more involved experiences here - say, holding the Ranfurly Shield in the smaller centres - but overall, if you tell a supporter of Indian cricket or German football or US college games that Kiwis are passionate about their spectator sport, they'll laugh (participation is another story, and a better one).
New Zealanders who dislike or are indifferent to sport - and rugby in particular - shouldn't make the mistake of thinking it's some kind of uniquely local feature. Again, it's confusing a media construct with ordinary reality. In 1950 or 1970 maybe it was all-consuming, but today it isn't.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Your misquoting Marx is all your doing.
Yes, but if you read Marx in full context and substitute professional sport for religion/religious belief .. don't you think that in many ways it [sport] serves some of the same functions in 21st century society?
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The 2011 RWC cost the NZ taxpayer over $400,000,000. If that kind of cash was given to the arts then we would have some real culture.
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Kyle MacDonald, in reply to
No, I'm saying, in a very generalised way that emotional repression is behind a lot of the problematic "externalisation behaviours" that men exhibit when distressed, depressed, or traumatised. And that further the more, as men in particular, we can get comfortable with feeling, tolerating and verbalising emotions the better.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
this song
Yeah nah
I watch sports for the simple joy of seeing talented humans do something really cool. I invariably find myself rooting for the losing team. I also love watching while exercising. It isn't about vicariously living through some sportspersons talent and honestly I think that's an incredibly uncharitable view of sports fans.
I'm disappointed when "my team" loses. That includes the All Blacks. But it isn't the end of the world. Maybe it's because I've always been a New Zealand cricket fan that I'm more comfortable with losing.
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And it must be painful for those who actually don’t care about the sport to watch the rest of us live and die with the flight of an oval ball,
Well, er, no actually, its rather pathetic watching grown-ups have tantrums over a game which has become Big Business and advertises the same company that ducked out of its responsibilities over the Christchurch earthquake victims, no, I don't mean Adidas.
But wait... there's more...
England exit from Rugby World Cup in first round would cost millions
Oh noes... the breweries might lose money... People might not drink enough. -
Why do these rugby conversations *reflexively* go to the "wake up sheeple" place? So many people like watching this sport. Are they ALL idiots? Every single one? Is the ENTIRE sporting culture an expression of toxic masculinity? Is ALL the money wasted? Every last dollar? I mean, fuck's sake. It's tiresome.
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linger, in reply to
But ... just think how many flag referenda that money could have bought!
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
So many people like watching this sport. Are they ALL idiots?
No, of course not. Hundreds of people watch Rugby and enjoy it, healthily. Unfortunately there is something in our national psych that turns a healthy interest in this game into an unhealthy obsession for many and that drives the emotional reactions from what should be "a bit of a buzz" to an unrealistic euphoria or depression.
We are not alone in this of course, England has a particularly nasty version in football hooliganism where the reactions come closer to war than a mere pastime should. In fact, many countries have similar obsessive behaviour in regard to national sports, South America is a good case for football, Canada for Ice Hockey and India for Cricket.
I don't mean to seem to be overly judgmental on this but it is something, as a nation, we should be aware of and take a good long hard look at our priorities. -
Danielle, to answer your rhetorical, the rugby conversions like to point out that it's deeply commercialised façade of things that barely exist any more because that never really gets mentioned in the MSM.
On account of the MSM being advertising based, and rather being a part of the non-problem. It's not harmful, as such, it's just a weird thing that there's this huge myth perpetrated by the media (who we all trust to keep us informed, to some extent) and folk are going to talk about that.
The fact that this great fake story of "Rugby really matters" ends up with obscene amounts of public money spent on it is also going to get on people's nerves. Not as much as that Sky City deal in Auckland maybe, but still.
I know I go on about it, but the local council in Dunedin used to have plans for things, the ancient sewers, the interesting roads, the flood systems that don't work, doing something about the encroaching sea, missing public transport links, none of that will happen in my lifetime now because they built a tiny rugby ground that they can't use most of the time instead (rather than spend 10% as much to improve the one they already had). For "our" world cup. Be nice if people woke up, eh.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
an unhealthy obsession for many
Which is an entertaining anecdote. However, given the lack of frothing hordes at Auckland Blues games I'd say that dogma is much more a product of the media than one based in data.
Yes there will be some mad fans but the vast majority of those watching are just enjoying a couple of hours.
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Kyle MacDonald, in reply to
I was at every Blues home game this year. I guess that's diagnostic...
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Danielle, in reply to
Be nice if people woke up, eh.
But I reckon the "waking up" should be related to critical thought about how our media and capitalism collude to create narratives that don't truly reflect the variety of the lived experiences of sports fans. It always ends up being this "you dummies, I rejected sport long ago for its opiate-like qualities, sucks to be you" thing, which is both non-persuasive and and analytical dead end. It's like when someone talks about a TV show they're into and there's always this one dude who leaps in to say "you proles! I got rid of my television 17 years ago and took up whittling! I haven't missed it a jot!", as if that's relevant to the conversation about the text.
(Actually this thread doesn't contain ALL those things, it's just something I've been thinking about during this Time of Frustrating Sports Discussion we have every four years, give or take.)
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I get annoyed when people expect you to be excited about the World Cup and imply it is somehow non patriotic not to be.
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Danielle, in reply to
It's probably just my friends, but I maintain a pretty total radio silence on all World Cup things because I have the opposite problem!
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