Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where everything is for naught and we’re just random blips of electrified flesh stuck to the surface of rock in an indifferent universe. Fuck you.
Super Bowl LVII is the latest proof that sports fans really shouldn’t believe anything. all Philadelphia Eagles fans were talking before the game because they believed that this team was destined for another ring. That they will deliver as opposed to Phillies in the World Series just a few months ago. That we were about to usher in the dawn of a sports renaissance in Philly.
I don’t know if there was self-confidence carried over from Super Bowl LIIsmashing the Eagles over the opposition New York Giants and San Francisco The 49ers in the NFC playoffs, everyone was picking them to win or some combination of the three, but they felt more than normal. I didn’t understand the cheerful nature. Philly is so there will always be a degree of arrogance, but this was different. They were cocky and actually believed the crap they were talking about. And that’s where they went wrong – hope is where they went wrong.
As Ignatius J. Reilly once said, “Optimism makes me sick. That’s perverse. Since the fall of man, his proper position in the universe has been that of misery.” And the faster sports fans accept that, the sooner they will accept my thesis: Don’t believe in anything.
If the natural law of sports is that there is only one of 30 to 32 teams win the title every year, that means the vast majority of fans will end up unhappy. The ring is the only thing that matters, but if nothing matters, then you can’t be hurt.
The best way to go through life is to isolate yourself to the point where nothing affects you. You are a speck in the universe that is neither insignificant nor special. You simply are. You only exist because science has dictated that life forms on this planet evolve into sentience.
Stop thinking. Stop believing. Stop hoping.
Whenever the topic of hope comes up, so does she Shawshank Redemption quotes about it. Andy Dufresne said of hope: “Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of all things, and no good thing ever dies.”
Well, in an alternate universe, one more realistic and with walls made up of more than plaster, Andy never escapes from prison and probably ends up hanging himself once he figures it out. Does that sound encouraging to you? See where optimism and simply thinking that good things will happen gets you.
I wake up on neither the good nor the bad side of the bed; I wake up in the middle. The day ahead of me will be what it is, and my state of mind will not affect the performance of my favorite team. Honestly, I’ve tried to get rid of everything in my life that can be categorized as a “favorite”, but you should still understand what I’m saying.
Being a sports fan means surrendering control of your emotions to forces you cannot control, and to do so is tantamount to willing self-submission. You have willingly imprisoned your mind for the outcome of child’s play. Grow up, Philadelphia.