As I watch the Dallas Cowboys play the New Orleans Saints, I think of the Cowboys winning and the feeling that the win would give me. If it is the Mavericks, I am the same way. The outcome of games that these teams play are able to significantly and emotionally affect me, whereas other people could care less. But I ask myself, why are these connections that I feel so powerful towards me? Why is it that if the Cowboys lose, the rest of my week is significantly less enjoyable? As I ask these questions, I try to think of some of the things that I value in team sports.

-Team Camaraderie

-Passion

-Unbelievable athleticism

-Aggressiveness

-Unselfishly sacrificing for the betterment of the team.

-Giving all you have to succeed

-Stories of great success and great failures

-the Drama that unfolds

So why do I and people like me care so much? Because it tells a story. It is a story of people working together for the common good. Giving everything you have to succeed. You see the emotions that take place on the field and court and identify with them. You see success and you see failure. In fact, if you look closely, you can take each of these aspects and show (symbolically) different aspects found within a community. I am not going to give examples of how these aspects relate because I am a lazy bastard. If you can’t see how they relate…read the aspects I just wrote before this paragraph again..sorry. Basically, team sports are people in a community working together to achieve the ultimate success, or “utopia.” All together, these are all things I really appreciate about team sports.

But, What does all of this mean?

Sports have indirectly turned people like me, who love sports, into dirty Socialists.

Today was kind of a rough day. I woke up feeling like crap and remembered that I had not taken my anti-depressant pills for 3 days. I felt like crap all day. So, I would like to give you some examples of how I felt. This is my explanatory model of withdrawals, or my withdrawal model:

-Dizziness

-Brain Zaps

-Cold Sweat

-Clumsy

-Upset Stomach

The Brain Zaps fucking suck. So, my question is…what in the fuck are brain zaps? To answer that, I went and looked it up on Wikipedia. So there is a description of what I felt today. Pretty crazy stuff, huh.

“Brain zaps” and sensations

Symptoms described as “brain zaps”, “brain shocks,” “brain shivers” or “head shocks” are a withdrawal symptom experienced during discontinuation (or reduction of dose) of antidepressant drugs.^[8][9] The symptoms are widely variable in description and of unknown etiology;^[9] common descriptions include dizziness, electric shock-like sensations, sweating, nausea, insomnia, tremor, confusion, and vertigo.^[8][9] The MedDRA “preferred term” for coding these types of symptoms in adverse drug reaction reports (for use in pharmacovigilance databases such as under the Yellow Card Scheme), is paraesthesia.^[10][11]

In a 1997 survey, a “sizable minority” of medical professionals were not confidently aware of the existence of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms.^[12] A 2005 review of adverse event reporting showed that descriptions of “electric shocks” from patients on paroxetine had been reported more frequently than some other symptoms.^[10]

This guy still makes me poop

Recently, I heard a lyric by one of the greatest metal bands of all time…DEATH (the band). If you haven’t noticed by the title, the lyric is “living in the pupil of 1,000 eyes.” As I listened to this song, I started to think about my life and why I do the things I do. I thought of all the eyes that surround me, expecting me to act a certain way. By this, I simply mean feeling obligated to do things to please others throughout my day. For example:

-Using my blinker when I have yet to see a cop do so

-Feeling obligated to give someone a tip when they haven’t done anything

-Thanking somebody when not thankful at all

-Buying a gift for that random someone, who invited you to their party to receive an extra gift

-Etc.

The point is that I feel that society expects more out of me than I am willing to give. Why do I have to tip you when you pour coffee into a cup and hand it to me? Did you pour it just right? Why should I use my blinker when I have yet to see a police officer do so? Why should I thank you for completely fucking up a simple task? Do we really know each other, do I really need to put on a whole production of being excited to get you a gift and act like I am happy to be there when all you want is that gift in the first place and all I want to do is go home and watch Seinfeld? It seems that we have created a wide variety of ways to force politeness. For what?

I sometimes feel that I really am being watched by 1,000 eyes. These eyes expect me to follow the norms and thank you for a job well done. What was that job you did again? Of course, I don’t have the balls to follow my own opinions, so there is really nothing I can do about it. If anything, I will keep complaining about these hollow gestures to my blog. I need to refill my anti-depressants.

The Cynical Perspective

So this is my first post and I thought I would post this picture to demonstrate how agitated I get with people sometimes. When I am driving. When I am at Wal-Mart. When I am thinking about mixed martial arts products. When I think of a Guido from the Jersey Shore. When I think of Spidey from The Hills. Lately, it seems that the smallest things people do really agitate me. For that reason, I would like to encounter someone associated with stuff that bothers me. I would like for that person to be lost and flagging me down to ask for directions. I would like to give those people false directions, ultimately leading the down a road that seems like a short-cut, but ends up leading into a lake.

So either I start chilling out, or I am going to start giving some pretty fucked up directions to a bunch of deserving people.

-The Cynical Perspective-