Sports and Emotion

Emotion...American society is often devoid of it. We lead the world in the copious amounts of mood altering substances that we take to suppress our true emotions. Even if someone is what our society would call "unbalanced", those are emotions that we suppress with prescription drugs, self-medicating through narcotics, opiates, uppers, downers...the list goes on. However, in the emotional wasteland that is the U S of A, people get crazy over sports. They will yell, fistfight, holler, and act generally insane over other people playing children's games. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I love sports; almost any kind of sport at any time of the year...I don't take any seasons off, I love pro and amateur sports...it's quite an affliction. However, I find it incredible that people get so fired up about sporting events of any kind. I am watching the Lakers and Nuggets play for a chance to go to the NBA Finals...people in Denver are now depressed...showing an emotion that they probably did not feel 3 hours ago before the game started...one that they will probably not feel next week. But for now, they are bummed out. Odd that in a corner of the world where we do everything that we can to not let others around us see our true emotions and feelings, we'll go up or down with our team with 20,000 strangers around us...maybe because they're doing the same thing.