And, I didn't like it. More specifically I didn't like my joy killing viewpoint.

 

When did it happen?  When did being the stand alone, all by yourself, nobody can touch you, win at all costs, star means winner designation, become the only measuring stick of success that matters?  When did things change from "being about trying your best and hopefully winning" to "being about winning it all…all the time"?  You know, if you don't win it all forever then you're destined to be a loser, a fallen star.

 

Musicians, artists, athletes, lawyers, all of us, have fallen into the "there's first place and then there's a bunch of losers" mentality.  At least it seems so to me.

 

I'm certainly not innocent. The truth of the matter is I have succumbed to the "top of the heap or nothing" view too. Don't know when it happened though.  All I know for sure is it I didn't feel that way back in the '50's and '60's, at least in my part of the world.

 

This self revelation that I had strayed from my 60's roots started to superglue onto me last week.

 

I was having a coffee and bagel with some friends of mine.  We were doing what guys do…talking about sports. First we examined the hockey team, where we jointly exclaimed that "this is the year we win it all."   Then we reminisced about the good old football days when the Super Bowl was a given…although we agreed that those teams had all "fallen short of real success."

 

Later in that same day I found myself in a conversation about music with some younger friends.  They practically jumped up and down with joy when talking about the newest, great, band, singer or wannabe.  When I brought up some of the icon names from my day…or even yesterday…they were shocked that I would bring them into the conversation.  I mean, they (the names I mentioned) weren't any good anymore.  They weren't at the top of the star pyramid. They weren't top dog.  They weren't rock stars…anymore.

 

Finally, I read an online account of Google's growing dominance on the internet.  The story mentioned that "Yahoo had fallen far behind the star of the web."   .

 

Maybe it's been all the "how to succeed at any cost" books and videos.  Maybe it's the increasing weight and scrutiny of the bloated media system.  You know, everyone on the look out for next great thing. Maybe it's the huge sums of money given as a reward. Maybe it's the attitude to focus on yourself, improve your personal stats to improve your position and get a bigger share of the money pie. Might be all the shows like Star Search, American Idol, Donald Trump. Maybe it's vanity, or greed or the loss of innocence.  But it…this "star only, win at all cost, last person on Survivor mentality"…is sucking the joy out of everyday enjoyment.

 

It really hit home recently while I was watching my alma mater, West Virginia University play the University of Louisville in a prime time showdown of top ranked teams from the Big East Conference.  Both were 7-0.  Both were in the hunt for a spot in the mythical Bowl Championship Series National Champion game.  As my team's fortunes collapsed in front of me, I began to grumble.  How could this happen?   Here goes the season! 

 

Louisville won, and I teetered on the brink of despair laced with frustration and a sense of let down. The stars of the team (media is always telling us who they are) had failed me!  They had gone from stars to has beens in three and one half hours!  

 

Then it dawned on me.  What was I doing?  What was I thinking?  What had happened to me? My team was having another great season.  They competed hard.  They didn't quit.  They were a joy to observe..  I can cheer another day. They will play another day. They aren't losers.  They're kids achieving all they can.  Pretty neat. My team had lost a game…one game…out of eight!  So what!

 

I had stepped back from the brink of some cosmic dark star of unreasonable expectations, and found myself clearly inside a simpler era when the enjoyment was in the doing, or the more passive act of enjoying the effort. It felt good.

 

My mind rolled back the years to the days when professional athletes and entertainers lived in the same neighborhoods as the rest of us…shopped at the same stores…got paid a reasonable wage, and took seasonal jobs as teachers, clerks and construction workers.  It was the day when you could reach out and touch them.  Distant stars were confined to the sky.  Effort was expected.  Winning was hoped for, and success came from the doing…whether as a team or an individual.

 

I remembered all the neat times of watching my teams upset a favored rival.  I could still hear the opening notes of a new song spinning on my 45 rpm player…from a new singer that seemed a lot like my friends and I.  I remember working hard to be a contributing part of a team…a team where the word star never came up.

 

And I remembered the joy of it all.  We had our standouts…our Mickey Mantle's and Whitey Fords…our Big Bopper…our Lucy and Ricky Ricardo…but they were somehow more accessible, real, and vulnerable.  They were all of us.  They just happened to work in public.

 

I heard a college basketball coach say recently that he was building his program without building a "star system."  Boy do I hope he succeeds. If he does, I'm sure his young players will also. 

 

The universe goes on forever, stars burn out in time.