Deconstructing the Compulsion to Participate
Here, there, and everywhere . . .
It was an ugly win, but it was a win nonetheless. As noted by a best friend living in Texas with whom I text throughout Bears games, “they couldn’t find the end zone with a goddamned GPS.” But the six-pack appeal of a practice squad kicker who goes four for five, the last a walk-off game winner, can’t be beat. It almost makes up for the Hail Mary, almost.
Living inside The Beltway affords few opportunities to display hometown pride, and even if it did my fandom is understated at best; I have one Bears t-shirt in the monthly rotation, and a long-sleeved Gayle Sayers replica jersey to wear at games. 51 gets plenty of love. 40, the other Hall-of-Famer drafted in ’65, deserves just as much.
Which brings me to the morning after the consistently hapless Bears managed to eek out a win against the Commanders. Minus Jake Moody’s storybook showing, the game was unspectacular, plagued by penalties and turnovers, and showcasing the visiting team’s pathological aversion to getting the ball across the goal line. Thank god for goalposts.
Still, it was a win and occasion for me to throw on said t-shirt and savor my two-mile walk to work in the company of so many DC commuters. I got honked at/flipped off by a couple passing cars, eye-rolls from fellow pedestrians on approach, and a Lime scooter commuter who offered a “good game,” as we passed. Praise from a paunchy, middle-aged guy in a blazer and a bike helmet felt adequate to the occasion.
As I continued on, soaking up all the rare victorious fan energy I could, my brain got hijacked. You know the feeling. I was being compelled, an incessant urge that has become the reflex of our era. This moment can’t be real until it is electronically validated. I’d have to stop, take a selfie, and broadcast to any and all that this is what municipal pride after an irksome Monday night looks like. Bear down.
And then the orchestration starts. Moments ago I was a guy ambling along a sidewalk in Silver Spring, sipping coffee and enjoying the fall air. Now, I’m a location scout. The brick wall of this liquor store? The cluster of trees at that intersection? An apartment building’s array of Dumpsters? There has to be an ideal backdrop. Either way, this light is great so let’s set up something.
That’s the indiscriminate tractor beam of social media. What was a pleasant moment degrades into preparation. What was solitary experience mutates into a compulsion to over-share. It’s the worst kind of work – self-inflicted.
The more reasonable thing to do is keep walking, ruminate on the phenomenon of tech-driven pseudo celebrity that sucks at us all like a storm drain, and then infer that it’s all beneath you in a tedious piece of writing. Wait, what?
More soon.