Okay, not so important, but when I have things on my mind, it plays on repeat in my mind, plus it has volume ramping, so if I don't share it, it will become like a siren in my head. I end up blurting it out to random people.
Yeah, I don't really do that, but I could. I have no natural verbal filter, my homemade one is flimsy, but very important and prevents random people everywhere from having conversations with me, also it prevents me from saying a wide variety of inappropriate things. So here is my rant...
I listen to the radio in the morning while taking the kids to school. A morning show on a music station, it's usually sort of funny, it's where I get the news, which like most Americans, I typically avoid. The news is depressing and its super biased, I read the same story several times and spend my time trying to piece together the raw information. It makes my brain want to explode and I end up super depressed or angry or both, (if I continue to write blog posts you will probably learn I am not as good at avoiding the news as I would like to be).
They start talking about the super important news of the day - Tom Brady went cliff-diving! I mean what could possibly be more important?!? (Certainly not the super depressed pilot who crashed into a mountain or Iran nuclear talks or the Nigerian election...kids may be listening and learn there are other places in the world or something horrific). I was listening to the DJs discuss this and they reached the consensus, "It's his life, he can do whatever he wants!" I was irritated. They started taking callers, and every single caller had the same opinion as the DJs. Not one voice of opposition.
My first thought was, did they screen these calls and only accept ones that agreed with them? My second thought was I should find a morning station with less news. My third thought was that football is stupid and the Patriots are the kings of stupid, so why am I getting so irritated about so much stupid?!?
It didn't take my long to figure out I was irritated because of philosophy! Rather a philosophical debate, that is rather important for society and since philosophical debates are not a national past-time in this country (my husband didn't know what a french salon was, he thought it was a fancy place to get your hair done), discussing Tom Brady cliff-diving is as close as we will get to having discussions on philosophy.
Brady chose a profession that being a team player is a requirement. He is depended on by his team and is very important to the team or so the fan boys claim. He is depended on by the team owners, the fans, the tax payers (who fund the tax-exempt NFL) and so on. He is paid like $11 million dollars a year and part of reason he earns such an absurd amount of money is because he is giving up his ability to be selfish! I know everyone loves Individualism, but like it or not Collectivism is important too. He is paid to put the wants and needs of the group (his team) above his own, which means he doesn't get to do things like go cliff-diving or sky diving or visit Indianapolis. I don't know or care if his contract allows for cliff-diving, he should know better then participate in activities that put him at increased risk for injury or worse.
There is no I in Team! Almost no one really cares about Tom Brady cliff-diving. People get riled up about the underlying philosophical debate of individualism vs collectivism, they just don't realize that is the actual argument here. I am not a football fan for variety of reasons (violent/dangerous, tax-exempt, when my kids do it I have to go outside in the heat and stay there and I volunteer to do things that suck) and the Patriots are my least favorite team (I prefer underdogs...Go Lions! Go Browns!), but I care because of that aforementioned debate. Brady chose collectivism, whether he realizes it or not, when he accepted millions of dollars to be a part of a team sport.
It would be much more acceptible for Tom Brady cliff-diving if he had just took his whole team with him. :D
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