Casually Serious

You're a kid sitting at your local card shop playing the hot new card game of the year. You've managed to beg your parents for money for a starter deck and a few booster packs, and you've picked the cards that you think are awesome and amazing and built together a collection that you think, will help you win at the game. When you hear about this amazing tournament, a chance to prove yourself against your fellows, your friends, and your rivals, you jump at the shot, managing to do all of your homework before 5 pm so that mommy-dearest (or daddy-dear) would drive you just in time for sign ups. Hyped up, pumped, and excited that you're even getting a chance to play the game with others (and with the idea of victory in the back of your mind), you sit down to your first match, opposite a kid who doesn't talk a lot and looks like his grandpappy just passed away.

As exuberent as you are, you can't get him to seemingly share in your enthusiasm. Instead, he trounces you in two easy games, and walks away with a condescending sneer while you look at the table in complete and utter disbelief. That just happened. What you considered to be a game of fun and magic has suddenly transformed into a massive wave of miasma towards your self-esteem, and one of two things happen; you either decide to suck it up and beat someone down next time to redeem yourself, or you decide to quit because 'it's just not fun anymore.'

What's interesting is that this situation doesn't happen just with simple card games that are the fancies of 5 year olds and basement-dwelling nerds. This situation occurs with just about anything that is even slightly competitive; the new kid on the football team who realizes that winning is more important (because the seniors who can beat him up easily told him so), the student who thinks science is amazing but gets ridiculed to the point of tears at a conference for not answering questions properly (or, at all), the new employee at work who is full of hope and confidence and ends up with the lowest performance at the end of the month and a 'meeting to discuss the future.' And just like our poor card-playing newbie, these people either decide to stick it out and improve, or decide to move on to greener pastures because either their ability or their ego is simply not up to snuff.

Life is a giant rat race, a competition for the best lifestyle that will satisfy all the wants someone could possibly have. To the druggie outside getting high with only a few dollars on his person, or the lax guy working at McDonalds without any long term plans, or even the girl who goes clubbing and wakes up to a new guy every day, life is something to be enjoyed and savored lest it slip away. It is difficult for such people to understand the straightlaced businessman on the CEO fast track, the premed who spends his entire life studying for a 4.0, or even the coworker who gives 110% for that promotion; why would anyone spend their life working when they can be out doing something that's actually fun? Likewise, our serious-business club members don't understand how someone can not do what they do because, well, what's the point of life if you can't 'win' (win, in this case, being a whimsical metaphor for personal fulfillment)?

It all boils down to what one's priorities are. To a lot of people, just living (much like 'just playing,' or 'just doing') is more than enough; the priviledge of being able to do it alone is fulfillment incarnate. Hence, they have already 'won,' attaining their prize and cheering like a kid with a new toy store as a birthday present. However, to many people, the focus in not on merely living, but in living well, in being able to do something competently to some personal standard of perfection. With such basic, fundamental terms being so radically different, it is no wonder that the two groups don't mix very well and in fact, abhor one another for such contrasting philosophies. But is there a middle ground?

Is there some way to combine the casual appreciation for doing something with the inward momentum to push forward and improve?

What casuals lack is a depth to appreciate their hobby to its fullness. After all, one cannot fully appreciate the scope of food without eating many, many types of food; one cannot claim to be well read without reading many genres, and one cannot certainly claim to be an adequate video-game enthusiast without the exposure to many different types. Like or dislike is not an issue here; in fact, the idea of being 'content' with one's current knowledge is the antithesis towards exploration. However, many casuals decide (wrongly) that maximizing personal enjoyment in a hobby is akin to appreciation whereas appreciation is deeply tied to an inward drive to learn every nuance, and see every sight. Appreciating something means the whole, not merely the portions that one would favor.

Somewhat elegantly so, serious business'ers confuse maximizing personal apprecation and skill with enjoyment; one should not enjoy doing something because one can do it well. People enjoy doing things because it appeals to them in some way, aesthetically, logically, emotionally, whatever it may be but certainly not simply because they do it well (save an ego trip). You can be the worse tennis player in the world but you can still enjoy it more than service-ace-man on the far court over there. Betting odds are, you're probably happier for it.

The middle ground between them is, to sound cliche, love. Think about what it means to love someone deeply. You enjoy them for who they are (even with flaws, mistakes, whatever have you) and yet you also want to learn more about them (even the flaws, mistakes, and whatever have you). Isn't that the same thing one does with a hobby they enjoy tremendously? Isn't that the sheer enjoyment for a hobby combined with the inward drive to learn more about it?

Thus, in my best imitation of Dumbledore, it is love that fuses the casual and the serious mindsets taking in only the good, and none of the bad. Who knows, maybe love really can save the world after all. If it can take the businessmen and the hippies, the power gamer and the new kid, the professional and the enthusiast and unify them in a common joy, who knows what else it can do for the rest of the world.

Today is sunny, but I'm inside where there's air conditioning. Thus, I am lazy.

Cheers.