#10-Spectatoritis: You Can’t Become a Man in the Bleachers
“The average man who has time on his hands turns out to be a spectator, a watcher of somebody else, merely because that is the easiest thing.”
That sounds like a quote from a blogger complaining about the $5.5 BILLION cost to build SoFi Stadium in Inglewood California. Although it would fit. I can’t visualize how much $5.5 billion is, so I asked Grok for an example, the answer was-if you spent $1 million dollars EVERY DAY, $5.5 billion would last 15 years.
That’s a pile of money to spend on a building for a large group of people to come watch a small group of men play a game.
But the quote is not from a blogger, it’s from “Spectatoritis”, a book by Jay Nash published in 1932.
He followed it with this banger;
“Here and there appears the aggravated case, completely infected, the fan who is nothing but a fan—a flabby creature, symbolic of the multitude, a parasite upon the play of others, the least athletic of all men, never playing himself at anything, a spectacle hunter, not a sportsman.”
Nash worried more and more men were becoming victims of spectatoritis, which he said was a ”blanket description to cover all kinds of passive amusement, and entering into the handiest activity merely to escape.”
Don’t overlook the fact Nash wrote this was during the Great Depression, when unemployment reached 25%. If men were sitting in the bleachers during that economy, imagine what numbers are today.
I was surprised to discover that spectatoritis is not about money. Spectatoritis allows men to live vicariously through the adventures and successes of others without having to get out of our recliner. Men do it because they want to feel better about something they personally lack but wish they had.
You can see it in the houses we build. In the 50’s and 60’s, homes had basement rec rooms filled with ping pong tables, dart boards or pool tables. Now houses have theater rooms where people can sit side-by-side in the dark and watch other people live. They watch shows like Deadliest Catch or Dirty Jobs that showcase bluecollar men working with their hands. Or they watch college football games that are played in stadiums where a single luxury box costs $5 million.
Guys, too many of us have become anonymous spectators who avoid any activity that involves risk or commitment. Or as Jay Nash put it, “there are two groups of men–the doers and the viewers—and one group is far, far larger than the other.”
There’s safety when you’re a viewer. Helicopter parents raised generations of men they protected from any pain or discomfort.
But men weren’t built for safety. It’s like the old saying that ships are safe in the harbor but that’s not what ships were built for. Men are programmed for the playing field not the bleachers. It’s all competition. It doesn't matter if it’s war, sports, or business . Whenever there is competition there is the possibility of losing, physical exertion, injury, or being ridiculed. Safety is not part of the equation.
Men were designed to be a doer on the field, not a viewer in the bleachers.
Now I’m not against going to ball games or concerts. I'm a diehard University of Alabama fan and I can’t remember the last football game I missed either on tv or at Bryant-Denny stadium.
It becomes a problem for men when being a spectator is no longer an occasional indulgence, but a way to feel better about the things they lack.
Men are not designed to live a passive life devoid of negative consequences. Every man needs to have areas of his life where he has some skin in the game. He needs to walk down from the bleachers onto the field and become a doer. Confident in the knowledge that even if he loses, as long as he gives it his all, he’ll be a winner.
You can’t become a man from the bleachers.
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One Small Step for Men…..
Five years from now you'll be the same man except for two things: the books you read & the people you meet.