I have played and coached sports my whole life. Besides learning about myself and TMS I have also watched and paid attention to the details of a lot of developing kids and young men...who wins and who loses...not just in sports, but in general.
Nothing has had my attention and scorn like the Modern 'We are all winners, let's be good sports" mentality that has taken over the vast majority of all enterprises in WOKE america. THAT is a construct of the American Collective Ego. Maybe we felt bad for winning WWII? I don't know. I could write my Phd thesis on the pussification of America.
My primary evidence that it is a False construct of the EGO is that it is absolutely NOT reflected in Nature, Pro sports,History or anywhere else in the world except in the Minds of a few Noble individuals who actually don't want to admit the emperor is naked. Most likely because they too are naked.
It is a basic human need to maintain our value (or at least our perception of value)... the only way to know how effective you really are is to stick yourself into the heart of an endeavour. Finding out the ID of your Value by comparison with your neighbor and Competitor. When I don't try to win I am doing my fellow no favor.
This could be anything... Playing sports, selling homes, digging holes, washing dishes. Branch Rickey said the reason Ty Cobb was Ty Cobb was that he never saw a man do anything where HE didn't want to be better at it than the man he saw, by sundown the next day. I think we ALL have this instinct and it is smashed and crushed by doing what is 'right'.
The more complicated, and useless, the Ego gets, the more cognitive dissonance occurs and from a simplified viewpoint TMS is basically an expression of cognitive dissonance in an individual. All of those repressed Angers were actually useful at some time in our development and we have temporarily evolved out of them (Like your appendix)...but we don't just quit using them, we DENY we ever had them (I never HAD an appendix!!)
5000 years ago , a mere tick on the evolutionary clock, your and my progenitors were only concerned with WINNING and they did. The only reason you and I exist and sit here on an internet forum is that our forefathers WON. We are the descendants of WINNERS. They got the food, The Mate, The Land, The field. The Losers had no offspring and were wiped from the genetic map. They live on only in our fuzzy little sentimental brains. Our progenitors prime concern was winning and from a DNA perspective it was SO you and I could be here. The had to procreate , Fight, strive and win.
But there are some losers in every generation. Technology and 'civilization' passed on the ability to 'think' yourself to success (or 'scheme'). Now I can leave My farm to my effeminate,lazy son and even though he can't defend it, society , law enforcement,etc. will keep the 'bad' winners from getting it from him.
Think about this the next time your next to some D-bag rich kid in his convertible. The only thing that keeps him seated and his property his own is his belief in a social contract. He couldn't defend it if that contract became null or voided. A million and a half years of evolutionary development doesn't get wiped out in 300 years of technology.
His Father and Mother who perhaps only have their positions by other social contracts are invested by necessity in him believing IN that contract. When he gets exposed in sports, a spelling bee, a project at school, they need to go to great lengths to stop 'winners' so over a period of time we develop 'ethics' about 'winning isn't everything' and try to get that belief ingrained into the psyche of as many people as possible. That becomes part of our veneer, the surface of our mind. The part we 'think' consciously. We make really emotional films portraying the evil, lonely sad 'Bad' guy who only wants to win (every hollywood sports movie ever)...and 50 years after Our heroes and icons were winners who overcame great odds, we're worried about micro-aggression and the 'feelings' of those Losers.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" I used to tell my kids "Since it doesn't matter whether we win or lose, let's go ahead and WIN and be the gracious winners". Empathy isn't giving the other guy a head start... it's NOT spiking the ball in the endzone. Don't flip the bat. Don't Brag. Ultimately it's Gods universe and we just get to be in it, but we do God a great disservice when we try to impose manmade ethics on his world.
I have not become some Ogre since I adopted this philosophy (which came after a thorough personal inspection 20 years ago after reading Sarno). But, when I am around people intentionally agreeing on a fallacy I quickly get alone and review what my REAL (usually repressed) feelings are. When I can get there, all symptoms cease. But every time I get there... I want to WIN
