Nick, Eric, Arlo
thanks for your kind replies. Your elaborate responses enlightened the topic
for me a bit. I have never been interested very much in politics or sports,
because I find it boring and because I am not good at it anyway.
If Newt Gingrich is better than Mitt Romney, if the San Francisco 49ers will
win against New York Giants, or if Bayern München will beat Real Madrid -
all of this is entertaining and important today, but forgotten tomorrow. And
it has only regional importance. People in Europe don't care about the NFL,
while Americans don't watch the UEFA Champions League (or national soccer
leagues like the German "Bundesliga"). For example in the German national
soccer leaque, Bayern München lost against Borussia Mönchengladbach 1:3 last
friday. It was big news here in Germany, but who cares in Santa Fe, NM,
about it? Nobody. And even here it will be forgotten in a few weeks.
Dealing with these fleeting, nonpermanent things can give you the feeling
that life is meaningless. Jean-Paul Sartre said "life has no meaning the
moment you lose the illusion of being eternal". Kids can give you this
illusion. Or science. If you consider a sports game as a collision of two
adaptive systems or if you construct agent-based models to explain
fundamental political processes - like Robert Axelrod - it may become more
interesting, though. As long as you are not a star in politics or sports, or
the founder of your own movement, it is hard to find a lasting meaning
there. Satre suggested that each of us has to find the meaning of his life
himself.
I have recently read the diaries of Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman who
lived in Amsterdam during the German occupation. Face with the threat of
extinction and the terror of Nazi Germany every day, she was looking for the
meaning of life. She writes in her diaries "We seek the meaning of life,
wondering whether any meaning can be left. But that is something each one of
us must settle with himself and with God. And perhaps (each) life has its
own meaning, even if it takes a lifetime to find it." [I have added "each"
in brackets, because it occurs in the German translation: "Vielleicht hat
jedes Leben seinen eigenen Sinn, und es bedarf eines ganzen Lebens, um
diesen Sinn herauszufinden"].
Nick, if want to go into politics, good luck. It is hard to be successful
there, and it requires a lot (!) of money. John F. Kennedy became president
not because he was suited for it - quite the contrary, he had Addison's
disease and his elder brother should become it instead - but because his
father was one of the richest people in the USA (see "The Kennedys: Dynasty
and Disaster", John H. Davis, McGraw-Hill 1984). Politics is all about
power, money and marketing. I would prefer if you stay here and answer our
stupid psychological questions! ;-)
Jochen
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