The Inner Workings of a Quasi Nerd: March 2011

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Disappointment

Being a fairly large fan of BYU sports I was quite thoroughly excited for the big sweet 16 game tonight, the first one BYU has been in in the past 30 years. Like any good sporting event the entire game was a gigantic roller coaster ride of emotions. The sadness of being down 10 early, and the excitement of rallies making up the large deficit. All of it was simply glorious with the high point probably being when regulation ended in a 68-68. Unfortunately after this point it was all downhill as the overtime was not BYU's time of glory. Rather we started to show fatigue and were pretty much dominated on both sides of the court. Well this got me thinking about a philosophy about pessimism that I had recently heard. Basically if your optimistic you'll either feel validated or disappointed, if your pessimistic then you'll either be validated or pleasantly surprised. Logically then, it makes more sense to be pessimistic than optimistic. While this is a hard argument to dispute, something in me just feels as though that can't really be the best way to go. Had I been pessimistic the whole game I would have missed out on the wonderful roller coaster ride during the game, and lets be honest, since we lost the game the roller coaster of emotion was definitely the best part of the whole thing. I think it has to do with the necessity of opposition in all things. If we are pessimistic and the worst we feel is validated, then we never really have anything to make the good times seem that much better. The opposition of being disappointed is what makes the highs so very high. I don't know about other people, but I do know that when I'm on cloud nine I want to be as high up there as I can possibly be. And the only way I see to be able to do that is by being optimistic and putting myself out there time and time again. Sure the lows will hurt, but the highs will make it worth it every time!

About Me Part Duece

Most likely the second most important thing about me is my truest of all loves, and no I'm not talking about some young philly who would probably just break my heart. I'm talking about the thrill of running the length of a field and laying myself out completely horizontally to grab a frisbee hovering in the air in the endzone. That's right my friends, I'm talking about ultimate frisbee, the greatest game on earth. Anyone who knows me knows that under virtually no circumstances do I have the capacity to say no to a game of frisbee. Time of day, weather conditions, or health are all things that, ultimately, have nothing to do with the decision to go play. Every Wednesday night at 10 I'm out there with some of my friends diving around like a fool, rain, snow or shine. In fact just writing about it puts a smile on my face.

Once you get those two aspects of me in your head the rest is really just secondary. I love to watch movies, play music (I play the drums, bass guitar, and I'm working on getting the regular guitar down, then on to the piano), and hang out with friends. There's really no substitute for a good conversation. I also like to consider myself a people pleaser, generally willing to do anything for people, especially if you're someone I like. And becoming someone I like is generally fairly simple, have a good conversation with me and you're accepted in my book. Finally, I love to make people laugh, especially if its at the cost of my own dignity. If you can get people to laugh at you, and you're laughing at yourself, that's pretty much the same thing as them laughing with you, right?