Amphibians

It's a winter Saturday night, and in New Zealand that means Rugby. In fact I am, as I write, keeping half an eye on the TV which is screening a surprisingly close game between the All Blacks and the Springboks. Someone I was talking to today dresses in black every game to support the Kiwi boys - in front of his television at home. There are special people in this world. What I find so fascinating though, is that humans not only enjoy to play sport (I can understand that) but they also love watching it. We're riveted by a few guys running back and forth across a field smacking a ball around. Wars have been started over soccer games.
I suppose it's the 'living vicariously' thing again. We don't get to do it ourselves, but we can at least watch somebody else doing it. We love conflict (when removed by several degrees) and sport is conflict at its most tangible, barring battle. It's amazing actually, the similarities between war and sport. The main difference is that hardly anyone dies on a playing field. Apart from that, it's not too hard to see why sheltered lords and officials in past centuries have regarded war as a game. Excusable, no; understandable, yes. But spite of efforts to make us PC and genteel, sports like rugby remind us of where we've come from and (when we play them) build in us the character to continue on into the future. Long may contact sports live, and may they never be hijacked by virtual equivalents. For we are amphibians: body infused with spirit, and what one does affects the other. We were not made to be disembodied minds; when our body grows soft, so does our soul. But tonight I'll just watch the experts.