Spiritual Blogs

71 If you have such confidence in your forces, come down to meet us in the plain, and there we can test each other’s strength. The power of the cities is ready to support me.72 Make an inquiry to find out who I am and the identity of the others who are supporting me. You will be told that you cannot make a stand against us. Your ancestors were twice put to flight in their own land.73 Now you too will not be able to withstand my cavalry and such an army in the plain, where there is not a stone or a pebble or a place to flee.” 1 maccabees 10:71-73

When you see something vehemently championed by government, then you should begine to suspect that it is handy in rallying and passifying masses so it is easy to control.

Soon we will, once again, be disrupted by millions of people accross the world buisy for a month of gawking at sets of 22 adults chasing a spherical sack full of air. Where did this lunacy came from? Where did human beings go wrong? To get an hint, consider the case of 'Goliath' vs 'David'. We have two armies, one for the Philistines and the other for Israelites. Then instead of fighting, a giant dares one side to pick one guy to fight him. In other words, the 'goliath' is saying that instead of all of us fighting to get the 'winner', lets just watch a wrestling tournament between two of us!

It is with such instances that the governments eventually learnt a good lesson. Sometimes all you need to do to satisfy the warmongers amongst the citizens (who are pushing for a war) is as simple event as a game! All they need to do, to satisfy their pride and egos is to 'win'. So anything that can create some sense of 'we are the winners' will satisfy the need, however pointless the activity itself is! We see this in Maccabees verse above. King Demetrius of Seleucid Empire is clearly seeing a war as a tournament! He needs a level 'playing field' to 'test who is realy strong'. So he dares Jonathan, the King of Hasmoneans to face him 'in the level field'!

Governments needs constant, external enemies to direct the attention of its own masses so as not to focus on the otherwise overwhelming internal problems. Indeed early governments begun as nothing but war leaders. When wars ended, the early kingdoms usually lost their justification for existence. To justify this, they had to keep masses at constant tensions and fears. To justify the ever presence of a king, they had to constantly remind their masses that 'there is an enemy out there'. If this 'enemy' is just a games opponent, then the better! We can achieve 'the victory of our kingdom' without any need to shade blood! It is in this sense that an otherwise pointless event that only lunatics can take itx seriously is deemed 'important'. (The story of how watching idlers chase sacks of air became 'important' is closely similar to how money, i.e. just pieces of papers became the most important thing people chase in their lives!)

If you are willing to accept, this 'need' for games explains a lot! It explains why countries differ in almost everything, but agree that masses should routinely gawk at guys chasing bags of gases and other lunatic things. They disagree with the need for all other infrastructures, from airports to houses. But they never disagree on the need for a stadium. Once such groups like Hezbollah, Houthis and Taliban take hold of what remotely looks like 'state', the first thing they do is not to build a road, a bank or a school. The first thing they build is a stadium (alongside prisons, of course)!

Governments often need to deal with masses and groups as a whole, rather than dealing with individuals because the latter is too difficult. If everyone thinks differently then it gives governments an headache. But if we divide masses into just two groups, them manipulation becomes just a piece of cake. So for instance a parliament becomes far more manageable if we just divide it into 2 rather than it becoming as diverse as there are members. Games are ideal in preparing the mindset for this 'binary'. Being told, ever since childhood, that watching people chase a bag of air is 'important' is instilling to your mind that a division into two opposing and competing groups is 'important' even if they are actually persuing pointless events! This insures that you don't check important things that the politicians should be doing for you as opposed to contestations over pointless issues no difference in importance from chasing sacks for the purposes of 'winning' for its own sake!

The government wants you to chose sides before you think critically on important issues. Having chosen which side, a kin to chosing to be a Chelsea fan rather than a Liverpool fan, you now want your side to win at all course regardless of the issues it is persuing! This is because a growing up in the diet of 'Chelsea Vs Man U' taught you that winning on its own is the important thing. It doesn't matter what activity it is that you are contesting for! So if you are a Trump supporter, you will chear it if he tells you that he wants to end the war in Afghanistan. However, you will criticise Biden for actually ending the war! Winning is the important thing not the issue! If you are a Chelsea fan, you don't like it if Man U scores a goal, but you like it if Chelsea does the same thing! It is not 'scoring goals' that you want. All you want is 'winning '.

Notice that sports are 'toy wars'! At some points, ancient kings noticed that sometimes all what war mongers need is to showcase how good they are at throwing spears. And also the need for their masses to spectate such. So they created javelin sport for them as an alternative! Why kill people all for the purpose of showing how far you can throw a spear? Similarly, the horses running, jumping over barriers, jumping over rivers created the steeplechase! The David-like 'slings' created hammer throwings, smashing opponent's heads with heavy rocks created shot boots, etc. Latter, the more subtle 'ball games' were added. The first 'foot ball tournament' was actually an alternative for war between two communities!

But the realy amusing one is the rugby. There were these boys fighting for an avocado. They had friends. So when one grabbed the avocado and run, the other chased him. When he got him and tried to wrest the avocado off him, he threw it to a friend nearby. Then friends of the other guy begun to chess the new holder and cicle repeated itself. Finally one of them had to dive to put it out of the fence and ended the contest! That was the first rugby match. So how could this event centering around aroud greedy, avocado gluttons end up being an 'important' thing for people all over the world to watch?