Vicariously meaningful

Armstrong proved his mettle yet again yesterday. What a display of team work by Team Discovery and then pure mountain genius by Lance to finish it up. He didn’t quite take the stage but he put time into all of his main challengers (unless the polka-dotted RasmUssen continues to keep up).

Embarrassingly anxious, I was about as vicariously engaged as one can get. I have to go back to the 98 Jazz run at the NBA title against Chicago to remember feeling so connected to a sporting event. I feel a bit silly during those white-knuckled viewer moments knowing I’m just one of millions drooling over Lance. Whether there is something of long-term value in this spectatorship, I don’t know. But I do know I greatly enjoy the moment and then, later, reliving it. I guess it’s wanting to be part of history but it’s probably more like not wanting to miss out on history. So much of life just passes by and is forgotten, crunched in amongst a thousand memories, most moments completely forgotten and the rest not worth remembering. There’s something comforting about being able to measure out life by recalling these few “lived” moments (sporting events, world disasters, big life experiences).

While driving to my class this morning I was thinking about all this. I’d just spent another 4 hrs watching today’s stage (I got up a 5am to catch early coverage) and I was feeling a tinge of guilt for not being better prepared for my class—those hours could have been dedicated to prep for a real-life class and students! But is it so simple? How and where do we create meaning? Can we choose to make something meaningful? My father-in-law will often invoke the future memory of an event we are currently experiencing before it has even finished. Sometimes I see him arranging a meaningful experience, like one composes a photograph, to view and re-experience at a later date. He’s very skilled at this, understanding quite well the balance between allowing or setting up an event vs. forcing it. While my wife has many fond memories which her father set up, she also admits he had an easier time getting caught up in a book than in an experience, maybe best expressed in his infamous response to his children, “I think we’ve had enough fun for the day."

I guess my fun meter alarm went off after my Tour indulgences which then spurred on my guilt. Tonight I will most certainly focus on constructing authentically meaningful lived experiences for my students. Real life here I come. No more silly flings with Lance for me.