Importance of Being Earnest, originally uploaded by tdouthat.

I’m sitting in the small gym at Truman High School watching Jill’s basketball practice. This is her first practice with her new team, the Blazers. It’s a big program in Independence with about 22 teams in different age divisions. Most of the teams play in AAU tournaments and some play in local leagues. I’ve only been watching for about 30 minutes but this is a whole new level for me. I’ve never been involved in a competition program before. Practices are run completely different and the kids are completely different. Everyone is much more serious, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s refreshing to see this many people being earnest.

Michelle and I like to laugh at the Horatio Caine character in CSI:Miami because he is so cheesy and earnest, but I also secretly envy the attitude. It’s hard to not be sarcastic, cynical, and ironic all the time. It takes a lot of emotional energy to actually care about what goes on around you, but I’m starting to get the sneaking suspicion that maybe people who give a crap are happier, healthier people. Maybe not everything is a joke and an opportunity to screw around.

Jill has more skills than I knew about. At her practices with her winter league IYAA team, she was so busy clowning and mouthing off, that I never noticed that she is actually a pretty good player.

This little discussion reminds me of an article I found a few months ago about
playing to win. It talks about the extra depth that brings to a video gaming experience, but I think you could apply it to any competitive endeavor.

Well, that’s enough for one night. Maybe now that I’ve switched from using Blogger to WordPress I’ll post more often. (Heck, maybe I could become an earnest blogger who competes for readers with other blogs.)