NLL Insider

Life. What is it?  Some pretty heavy subject matter, and on a lacrosse blog no less.  I’m not going to sit here and pretend to know, or contrive theories and use this site as a public forum to tell the world what I think is what.  But, I’m dealing with this sort of subject matter in my work at the moment, and it got me thinking.

It takes me back to a conversation I had with a good friend of mine, fellow existentialist and lacrosse aficionado, Martin O’Neill.  I posed the statement: “lacrosse is the microcosm of our lives.”  He returned, with an emphatic, “Absolutely it is.”  Okay, so what am I talking about?

Let’s break this down into 3 stages and see if I can make some sense out of this nightmare of semantics: Macro, Micro, and Process.

1) Macrocosm: The total or entire complex structure of something.  In this case here, the “something” is Life.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that everyone recognizes they have been designed specifically – or in other words, you understand that you have a purpose of being here.  And if you think you don’t, realize nihilism is bounded by purpose, inside of having no purpose. 

2) Microcosm: a miniature representation of a model.  Of course in the case of ball players, we’re talking about lacrosse in congruence with the above.  Lacrosse – Micro, Life – Macro.  But generally speaking, everyone in the world has their own microcosm in which they live in to help them better understand the macro.  Please exempt the fact that if anyone reading this happens to be a 6,000 year old Wu master who has left his cave in the Himalayas and for whatever has jumped on a computer, I apologize, because of course you are in with the macro and out with the micro.

3)Process (combining the two): Lacrosse is the miniature representation of our life.  The reason I say this is because we’ve been involved in it longer than any other process that means anything to us.  You may have kids, your career, or other institutes of learning.  But, chronologically, lacrosse has had a longer influence on our lives.  So, in a cause and effect action, these latter inceptions, kids, career etc., are formed either directly or indirectly because of lacrosse.  Please understand that I am approaching this at a very organic, perhaps even subconscious level.  (Please note your biological family is not a process, it’s an uncontrollable circumstance).

To corroborate, the game plays a major role in your moral and behavioral tree.  From the beginning, think about the things you’ve learned from lacrosse — discipline, loyalty, camaraderie, will, trust, friendship, belonging, the list could go on.  And as you’ve grown, it began to branch off, influencing the way you raise a family, the effects it has on your career, and the significance it has on your social life, how you act and react in society.  It’s probably also the reason why your liver and memory is failing you.

Anyway, what I’m saying might seem a little bit of a stretch.  I don’t have the time to really pad the paper here and give it the logic that plays so easily in my head.  In short, it’s always important to step back from the micro and analyze it with a bird’s eye view.  Seeing it at such a fundamental level just gives all the more of respect and recognition for it.  It puts the macro into perspective.

In other news: Go Rock go.

Rate This Story:

(11 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

 Loading ...