As senior tennisters liked to tell us back in the 80s, you can learn a lot about a person right after a match when he wins or loses. I can still picture the looks on their faces while they offer their short talks directed at the bowed heads of the conquered. It was a good match, too bad one had to lose. Etcetera. The words still ring clearly in my head. I would’ve loved to offer some words of my own but always thought better of it. Wasn’t much of a speaker like our elders at the courts. Theirs was the kind of speak that, when they opened their mouths, you listened. Words of wisdom came aplenty. Mine had toads coming out of it. Even when they just merely nodded, you knew right away there was purpose there, almost like a poignant pause. So you just shut your trap.
That was one of the lessons we learned in sports. Lose gracefully and never be brash in victory. Ne humble instead. To add to these, we might as well annex what was taught in school : fight the good fight.
But life is not exactly like sports. Not by a long three-point shot. One learns too quickly, it’s dog-eat-dog all the way and the only thing akin to sports is that it’s a rat race to the end. The coming of internet and social media has amplified this and has misled people, but trolls mostly, into looking at life as though it were a both a participatory event and a recreational mush pit. In a weird way, spectator sports, too.
Take the just-concluded electoral exercise (sporty way to say it). When it was over, schadenfreude galore. If it couldn’t be visual enough, the net was filled with people throwing salt over other people’s wounds. Oh sure, the victors may have been humble in their win, but the spectators, livid, vocal and wild in their thumbs-down revelry while comfortably seated in the comforts of their online coliseum.
My classmate cautions, let them have their fun. And as if on cue, that reminds me of so many things all at once. Among these, some decent uncomfortable quips: To the victors go the spoils. All things must pass. And last, they deserve it (pertains to both winners and losers). But never a mention of fighting the good fight.
Through all this, I just like to share the thoughts of one who didn’t make it to the winners’ circle. In the end, it’s never about who won or lost. What’s important is a mandate has finally been handed down by the electorate. On whose hands this mandate goes to, it’s now their responsibility to work for the development of the city and country and to seek for the betterment of everyone. Nothing in sports close to that except maybe, don’t cheat.
