An answer to the age old question

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Current mood: contemplative
Category: Blogging

A friend of mine today asked this question in her blog...

Why is that we always want whatever it is that we cannnot have?


One answer:

We are predators, not prey

Its inherent, timeless, and dates back to the earliest origins of man. We hunt.

We do not take that which is easy to acquire, because we apply intrinsic value to that which is rare or difficult to obtain.

If something takes effort to acquire, it, by that fact alone, becomes better to us. And moreover, the act of acquiring it sometimes carries even more value that its actual possession.

This is why we have sport.
What is sport? Rabbits don't play basketball. Sport is the act of the hunt, or the chase, or everything competitive, without the result.

The puck does not need to be in the net. It serves us no purpose for the ball to be in the bleachers, and to run back to where we started. The track star has no need met by being 100 yds further forward, especially when there are 15 impediments in his way that he must jump over to get there.

But... the act of the chase, putting the puck in the goal, putting the ball over the fence, running as fast as one can around a diamond back to the same point, or getting 100 yds down the track... and trying to prove that you're the best or the fastest at it... satisfies a need that hearkens back to the mammoth... which just proved better than tundra weeds.


That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.