Primal Urges

In less than two hours, I will once again don my football raiment, step out onto the field, and play yet another game of pickup football. I will be hurt. This is not even up for debate. I will take chances that I should not take, for a game that is essentially meaningless (though, on the cosmic scale, all we do is meaningless). There will be triumphs, as I probably score a touchdown, and tragedies, as I probably fumble the ball and it is returned for a football. I will launch myself full speed at people I should not (everyone else on the field). There may be pictures of my embarrassment (witness the last time when I went shoulder to shoulder with J.G. and came away wondering why the sky was full of grass).

Why do I do this? Because evolution has designed me to respond well to physical activity and minor pain. No doubt one of these days I will break a limb, and I will no longer play. But until then, playing football satisfies some primal urge within me. Plus, it helps me to bond with people. I mean, really, talking? You can talk and talk and talk with people, but what do you really learn? Well, OK, you learn quite a bit, but none of the truly important stuff. Actions do not speak louder than words, for they have no mouths, but they reveal a great deal about a person. There are things I will pick up about people on the field that would take me months, years to learn through conversation.

This is not something I need. People call me a fool for doing this, though they have called me a fool for doing many things. On the list of idiotic things I have tried, this is fairly low. And yet, when I go out and play football, it makes me feel like a little bit more of a complete human being. Maybe it's a reaction to being one of the smallest kids and physically inept? I'm still physically inept, but at least I can get out there and get hurt. I don't know, and maybe I can't put it into words (what? K.T. unable to use words? Preposterous!), but there's something special when I go out there on the initial kickoff, and the ball is flying in my direction, and my two thoughts are "Don't drop the ball" and "Don't get badly hurt."