Christmas

Christmas day during childhood years had always brought material hopes. It started with ninja turtle action figures, moved onto sega genesis games, and matured into new shoes and jackets. However, tomorrow it seems what brings me most excitement is...

Sports, and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Arriving home to Santa Maria, my brother told me he had rummaged through his closet and stumbled upon an old portfolio I had put together for my 8th grade english class. Intrigued, I took the time to look through its contents... which consisted of journal entries and "extended quickwrites."

And what's funny is that my interest for the Lakers back then is the same as it is now. There were several entires that had this form: "This weekend was a pretty good weekend. I'm pretty happy because the Lakers just beat two pretty good teams. Seattle on Friday and Utah on Sunday..."

What's sort of thought-provoking is the idea that my thoughts towards the Lakers back then really had no affect on me whatsoever. And the same goes for today, and I know that. Yet, I still spend all this time following players on a sports team who have no bearing on my life whatsoever. Smush Parker has no idea who Ian is, so why should I care about him?

But that's how it is for all sports fans, all "hardcore" sportsfans. They dedicate their lives to an obsession that has no affect on them... or does it?

I think being a sportsfan brings hope. For those who follow sports teams, they hope that their teams rack up winning streaks or make the playoffs and ultimately win championships. Their triumphs become our triumphs. Year after year, there's this notion of hope that comes alongside following a sports team... and it seems that notion of hope is ultimately what brings fans back...

For some people, the hope they place on teams is more likely to be fulfilled than the real hope that exists in their lives. Three games won in a row may be more likely to happen than personal aspirations reached - or, at least, more likely to happen quicker. Maybe the real reason why sports is so high on contemporary society is that we all need some alternate path to hope fulfilled, one that's quicker, and easier to get to... since our real hopes are often not.

So, tomorrow... I'll be rooting for Kobe and Kwame and Odom and all the rest of the Lakers as they do battle w/ Shaq and Miami... w/ the hope of a win, w/ the hope that Kobe can maybe gain respect from Shaq and the rest of the league.

...since that hope fulfilled would be a quick fix to the unfulfilled hopes I hold inside.

Even though I know it all doesn't really matter.