Thoughts on sports/Violence as a pass time

When I speak of sports in the general sense, think of football, basketball, golf, baseball, soccer and things of the like where the primary objective is to reposition the ball to some arbitrary point, thereby demonstrating finesse or cardiovascular intensive athleticism.

I dislike most sports. They are non-immersive, non-practical, repetitive and structured around arbitrary objectives and rules. They lack purpose, and the religious devotion of sports fans to any given team is, in my eyes, one of the most ludicrous forms of fanaticism to ever stalk the surface of the Earth.

I've been criticized before for the fact that I am a fan of games (preferably for Windows), which are plainly related in premise to traditional sports and maybe called a species of sports in themselves. I contest that the attraction of video games is less in the pointless demonstration of superior hand-eye coordination, and more so in the matter of immersion. If such electronic games are a sport, then they are distinct in that they appeal to the player's imagination in a way that a basketball court simply cannot. No matter how steeped I am in the action of a tennis match, it will likely never transport my intellect to a place where my feet are not. No matter what, I will remember that I am in a court, ridiculously dressed and, silly me, striking a tiny yellow ball over a net. I will also note that electronic games combine seamlessly to the arts of literature and film. This is a dimension that the NFL could never possess.

One of my chief complaints about these traditional sports is their arbitrary nature. In golf, for example, there is no point to the constituent parts of the sport outside of the context of the sport itself. At no point outside of the game of golf would someone be called upon to drive a tiny ball across an open field with an iron club, nor tap it into a tiny hole. Those mechanics are only there as a demonstration of finesse; they have no other purpose. The demonstration itself has no use, so I deem the sport pointless. Why would I want to tap this ball into a hole with a club? Can anyone explain to me the motivation behind this? There isn't one. The goal is arbitrary and has no relevancy or reference to anything outside of itself. This brings me to my next thought.

Most people who are vaguely familiar with me are surprised to learn that I fence and quite enjoy the sport. They have a difficult time reconciling previous knowledge about me having contempt for most sports with the idea of me training and competing in one. When the fact comes up, I have to explain why I can savor every moment of a fencing match, but utterly cringe at the idea of chasing a ball across a field.

The difference between fencing and, say, soccer is plain. The goal of fencing, as well as the rules that govern one's pursuit of that goal, is not arbitrary. It has purpose and relevancy to things beyond the competition. Fencing is not a mere show of athleticism; it is a simulation of actual combat, as its origins dictate. It is the art of handling the body and blade in such a way as to inflict harm without sustaining harm. That is a meaningful purpose that appeals to real-world motivations that are as personal as the urge to feed and drink. Moving a ball into a net with my feet offers no such motivation.

However, there is more to the enjoyment that I derive from fencing. I enjoy the simulation of violence itself. Everything that it means to feel human is so much more potent under the illusion of combat. There is the fear of pain and death; it sits, at every breath, only an instant away. A brief folly and it's upon you, and you feel that. There are the seconds of predatory fury, of relief, of confidence, of doubt, of vengeance lust, and somewhere at the core of it all is a primal hunger for malicious subversion, for the infliction of contemptuous pain upon the other in the knowledge that it is either you or he, and it's all interwoven with the intricacies of blade and foot work.

I suppose that's all I really wanted to do for now, reflect upon why I enjoy the sport and why it seems distinct from others.