Like most people, I believe in many things. I believe in gods and monsters. I believe in supernatural phenomena. I believe in fate & destiny and reason & science. I believe in freedom. I believe in order and chaos. I believe in structure and discipline. I believe in conservatism and progressive liberalism. I believe in abiding fundament. I believe in change. I believe we are masters of creation. I believe we are slaves to a fabricated and meaningless existence.
But resolving all that seeming contradiction comes from my belief in 3 things:
Context, Consistency and Control.
What the hell am I talking about?
CONTEXT: Everything must be put in its proper frame of reference in order to be properly examined and evaluated. It’s sort of my existential induction of Einstein’s Special Relativity. The same way one can not accurately measure the mass, speed, or any other physical property of an object without putting it in its proper frame of reference, one cannot accurately measure any human thought, word or deed without doing the same.
A man stands on a flatbed section of a train moving 80 mph and fires a fastball off the back and all his fellow passengers say, “Wow!” as they measure 92 on the gun.
But the scout who happens to be standing at the junction as this circus passes by says, “What are these idiots talking about? That thing barely broke 10 on MY gun!”
Today, we all know that the problem here is CONTEXT.
Let’s imagine that the train, the flatbed, the passengers and the pitcher (everything on the track but the ball) are all invisible. The passengers on the train had a proper frame of reference that was not the same as the rube standing idly by at the junction.
The passengers saw a ball at rest in the pitchers hand that then raced away from them at 92 miles per hour, the rube saw a ball coming TOWARDS him at 80 mph, slow down, stop for an instant, then start moving the other way at about 12 miles per hour.
Terrific. Let’s talk about CONSISTENCY.
In addition to the Newtonian consistency in observable phenomena that Einstein proved exists in cases like the one above, I also believe in consistency in terms of BALANCE. Call it what you want, karma, yin-yang, action-reaction, cause and effect. That’s all fine, but my belief also entails the ACCEPTANCE of that effect, that reaction, that balancing variable of an equation.
We’ve all been in or heard an argument involving a “moral relativist.” At some point someone always pulls out the “What if someone raped and killed you wife and children?”
Part of the problem in this argument is semantic. The relativist might say murder is not inherently “wrong” or “bad” or “evil”. This isn’t the same as saying that it is something that a particular person or group of people would rather not happen.
Millions of Americans wanted Michael Phelps to propel himself through an aqueous medium at a marginally faster rate than 7 other people near him. Any of the other guys could have touched the wall first. Americans would rather it NOT happened. But that didn’t make either occurrence wrong or right.
Of course malicious acts such as murder inspire more visceral emotions and reactions. But it’s still just an action that you either would like to see or experience or not.
I don’t want my friend murdered. Most people in a civilized society don’t want him/her murdered. But the “murderer” does (and maybe whatever worms are waiting to feast on his body wouldn’t mind either).
It just so happens that the rest of an organized society have agreed (and rightly so) that it’s better if we don’t have dudes knocking each other upside the head with rocks (but even if that WERE the case, would bodies be dropping at a rate greater than, say, cancer deaths, auto-accidents, heart-attacks etc?).
So saying it’s not “wrong” is not the same as saying “it’d be better and nicer and probably more spiritually enlightening if this thing DIDN’T happen”.
Putting semantics aside it’s not incorrect to say the death of Herbert X wasn’t really bad for the state he lived in. It wasn’t bad for the country in any noticeable way. The earth doesn’t care. The universe doesn’t care. And honestly, god probably doesn’t care either.
But everyone who KNOWS Herbert X cares. People who know of him, or relate to him or who are sympathetic to that sort of thing all care. The church cares. The state cares. The Law cares.
So now, there is a CONSEQUENCE.
The victim’s brother takes a baseball bat to the murderer’s head. Or maybe his neighbors turn him over to the authorities. The state presses charges. All these are actions that individual entities take because something happened that related to them. It affected THEIR frames of reference.
If in the murderer’s frame of reference Herbert’s death pleases him, so be it. And if this guy knew the consequences and was willing to accept them…or even if he didn’t but was willing to come to terms with whatever consequence he was ignorant of, then there’s no way I can say that what he did was wrong. It’s HIS frame of reference. That is the context for the “right vs. wrong” evaluation.
Right vs. Wrong isn’t a matter of morality. It’s a matter of BALANCE, the balance between your thoughts and emotions BEFORE a decision and those AFTER. Regret and remorse after-the-fact betray previous decision making. That incongruence makes something “wrong”.
Finally we come to CONTROL, which encompasses everything mentioned above. When you have a proper understanding of these other concepts then you can start exercising some control of what would otherwise seem chaotic.
And it is!
As far as any individual is concerned there IS chaos. There are things operating in, around and on you, of which you have little to no understanding. That can seem chaotic. But to the guy pulling all the strings it all makes sense. It might be a tragic sense, or a comedic sense, or a malicious sense. But there is an internal logic to it.
You CAN exercise control to the degree that you can understand what is happening about you, however.
You can be in a federal prison and be in control. If you consciously and purposefully chose the actions that put you there, then you are your own jailer. And you may not have foreseen the conditions of your confinement or the length. But the degree to which you were willing to accept it, acknowledging that you cannot me cognizant of ALL things, is the degree to which exercised control.
This is how people in the direst of circumstances can remain calm or happy and those in seemingly utopian conditions can be miserable.
Pats lost.
Colts won.
Those are just the results. Whether Belichek made the “right or wrong” call on 4th and 2 from the 28 has NOTHING to do with the result of the game. It has EVERYTHING to do with what we just talked about (didn’t think I’d get here, huh?)
Up 6 points on the fat side of the 2 minute warning Belichek was faced with the decision to either punt or go for it. He chose to go for it.
Doesn’t matter if you get it or not. A new universe opens up once you put something into action (suppose they made the 1st down but Brady suffered a season ending injury on the play. Go ahead and follow through on your kneel-to-win-the-game-plan, but your season’s plans are up in smoke). But what DOES matter is that your decisions and actions after the fact are consistent with your thinking before. They don’t have to be the SAME decisions, just consistent with your thinking.
You make the decision to go for it for one or both of the following reasons:
1. You have no confidence in your defense, were they to punt the ball.
2. You have extraordinary amount of confidence in your offense to get that 1st down in the toughest of circumstances.
We aren’t privy to Belichek’s thoughts, but we are privy to the decisions he made after turning it over on downs. We can therefore evaluate those decisions for consistency.
The ONLY action that would have justified the gamble was to let the Colts score on the next snap.
If the reason for the gamble was a lack of confidence in his defense to defend 75 yards for 2 minutes, then he should have had even LESS confidence in them defending only 30 yards for 2 minutes. To be willing to make that defensive stand given those unfortunate circumstance means you should have been willing to do the same in better circumstances. And not only did this put him out of balance but he also relinquished control.
If he believed his offense gave him the best chance to win, why not put the ball back in their hands with as much time as possible. Only a field goal was necessary. A return to the 30 would put them more or less in the same circumstances as Peyton, needing to make a couple of first downs to get a shot at kicking the game winner. I’d rather 4 shots at ten yards than 1 shot at 2.
In the end he only left his offense with 9 seconds to win the game. Not only did he give up the control he had but he put his players in a position to get injured in an impossible situation (Josh Cribs and remember how Jay Alford speared Brady him on the 2nd to last snap in the SB).
Context.
Consistency.
Control.
I’m just gonna run through these picks quickly
***NFL LINES & PICKS: WEEK 11***
THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
Dolphins@ Carolina -3.5
Already done but there’s no way I woulda touched anything but the under.
EARLY SUNDAY GAMES
Browns @ THE MOTOR CITY -3.5
Both teams are terrible but the Browns defense isn’t SUPREMELY terrible nor is the Detroit offense.
Bills @ JACKSONVILLE -9
The Bills ARE supremely terrible and will not stop MoJo and MSW.
Steelers @ ARROWHEAD +10.5
Troy’s out and it’s a road game.
COLTS @ Charm City +1.5
gotta take Peyton to win by 2.
FALCONS @ THE NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS -7 ±45.5
Gonna be a big day for Gonzo but I like the UNDER.
49ers @ LAMBEAU FIELD-6.5
AaRodge is a stunna.
SEAHAWKS @ MINNESOTA -10.5 ±46.5
35-13? At least!
Take the over.
Braves @ COWBOYS STADIUM -11
not after losing in Green Bay.
Saints @ EAST ST. PETERSBURG +10.5
Saints need Sedrick Ellis back.
LATE AFTERNOON GAMES
CARDINALS @ The Georgia Dome +9
Cards match up too nicely against the Rams.
Jets @ FOXBOROUGH -10.5
I believe Mr. Sapp called it a “40-burger.”
BENGALS @ The Black Hole +9
I shouldn’t take the Bengals on the west coast but I will.
CHARGERS @ Mile High +4
Somethings gone wrong in Denver.
SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
IGGIES @ Soldier Field +3
Not even close.
MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
TITANS @ Houston -4.5
Tough one. Shitty “no-man’s land” line so I just gotta go with who I think will win.
Can’t say “Happy Hunting!” since I was so late with this. I’m posting this mainly for the Belichek analysis and to record what my picks were before Sunday.
And obviously there’s nothing left to parlay, but Titans and the over isn’t a bad play.
Later!
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