I have learned whenever I have any big questions about life, to first look within or at my own life for at least some initial insights. So when I look at my life I discover that I, like most people, have benefited in some significant ways, from competition. I’m a college graduate. I got into the college I attended and it’s a sure bet that others didn't, especially since the college I attended was a competitive Liberal Arts College. Same with graduate school. My graduate school class contained 10 people. It was part of an accelerated program where three years of study were squeezed into 1.5 years. We were told a few weeks after classes started that the department had a more a difficult time that particular year than usual selecting those who would be admitted to the program. Normally no more than seven were admitted. However, we were told they had a higher number of impressive candidates than usual that year forcing them to choose a larger number than what was typical. That year we were also told about 200 applicants competed for those precious few coveted placements.
So, what has inspired me to write about competition? Many things. Though perhaps it is one seemingly insignificant experience that pushed it near the top of my awareness.
A month ago I was on a non-stop flight from San Francisco to London. For anyone not aware of it, this is typically about an 11-hour flight. As I was traveling in coach, the passenger next to me was practically in my lap. (Note to self: Dude, think about giving up a little more coin the next time your plans call for being in flight for anything more than 5 hours. Think about upgrading to at least business class. It won’t make you a sellout. At least think about it, OK?). At any rate, on flights of this length, even bringing copies of War and Peace and The Complete Writings of Shakespeare to read doesn’t solve one of the problems of being in the air for many hours. The eyes simply cannot remain focused on what increasingly become annoying little scratches on a page, for the entire duration of a double- digit hour flight. The eyes need a break now and then. So they wander. And so on one of these eye wandering expeditions, my eyes wandered to the pages of the open magazine belonging to the LA based goth girl who was sitting just to my right. It helped that she was also asleep. This allowed my eyes to do considerably more than just wander. My eyes were able to park on the pages of her magazine and even put some money in the meter. It seems my in flight neighbor had fallen asleep with her magazine turned to the pages that contained several sets of A-list Hollywood women captured by various paparazzi wearing the exact same designer frock. This presumably is not a good thing in Tinsletown. Readers apparently got to make their own educated or uneducated guess about which woman looked better in the same designer digs. Other readers had already logged their opinions, as there was a tally of the voting breakdown, represented as percentages, of readers, I presume, who had voted for one or the other of the women. I was both fascinated and slightly horrified at the same time by this. Many thoughts went through my head. One went something like this: “Wow, competition in this culture has gotten so out of hand that people are competing against each other without even being aware of it.” I sort of left it at that at the time.
A month ago I was on a non-stop flight from San Francisco to London. For anyone not aware of it, this is typically about an 11-hour flight. As I was traveling in coach, the passenger next to me was practically in my lap. (Note to self: Dude, think about giving up a little more coin the next time your plans call for being in flight for anything more than 5 hours. Think about upgrading to at least business class. It won’t make you a sellout. At least think about it, OK?). At any rate, on flights of this length, even bringing copies of War and Peace and The Complete Writings of Shakespeare to read doesn’t solve one of the problems of being in the air for many hours. The eyes simply cannot remain focused on what increasingly become annoying little scratches on a page, for the entire duration of a double- digit hour flight. The eyes need a break now and then. So they wander. And so on one of these eye wandering expeditions, my eyes wandered to the pages of the open magazine belonging to the LA based goth girl who was sitting just to my right. It helped that she was also asleep. This allowed my eyes to do considerably more than just wander. My eyes were able to park on the pages of her magazine and even put some money in the meter. It seems my in flight neighbor had fallen asleep with her magazine turned to the pages that contained several sets of A-list Hollywood women captured by various paparazzi wearing the exact same designer frock. This presumably is not a good thing in Tinsletown. Readers apparently got to make their own educated or uneducated guess about which woman looked better in the same designer digs. Other readers had already logged their opinions, as there was a tally of the voting breakdown, represented as percentages, of readers, I presume, who had voted for one or the other of the women. I was both fascinated and slightly horrified at the same time by this. Many thoughts went through my head. One went something like this: “Wow, competition in this culture has gotten so out of hand that people are competing against each other without even being aware of it.” I sort of left it at that at the time.
I get most of my news from the Internet. In the process, I often find myself reading other things that come across my computer screen. There are a lot of bloggers that are featured on many different sites. I have noticed a lot of content I end up reading has either a strong or subtle message of competition imbedded within it. Usually it’s pretty strong and pretty transparent. Everything from the very copious music bloggers with their inevitable top 10, 20, 25 or 100 lists to the news stories themselves which seem to constantly be comparing someone or some country or some issue to some other person, country, issue, etc. It seems we have become a world where Andy Warhols famous (or infamous, depending on perspective) 15 minutes of fame has been expanded to an additional 15 minutes (total of 30 minutes) with the additional 15 minutes being devoted solely to comparing everyone who achieved the initial 15 minutes to the newer 15 minute hall of famers in a dizzying array of pop culture categories of presumed interest to the masses. How did we get to this place?
When I speak to many of my coupled friends what I call the “est” dynamic or phenomenon usually makes an appearance at some point. Here are some examples of what I'm speaking about:
"My boyfriend is the smartest man I’ve ever met."
'My wife has the prettiest smile."
"My lover is my b-est friend."
"My partner is the coolest when it comes to this or that."
"My girlfriend is the cutest little thang, etc."
What’s going on here? Is it just an innocent and unconscious obsession with adjectives that interestingly seem to mostly take hold once there is an object of one’s affection in the picture? Or is there something else going on here? When someone is the “est” at or about anything, a whole lot of other people get left in the dust by design.
The system of “free” enterprise commonly known as capitalism is based almost entirely on competition. Most people know and will admit to this if they are being even the slightest bit honest. I do wonder however, how many other unsuspecting areas of our lives have been infected by this and how deeply. Just how much has life, especially in the West, been shaped by competition? How much has competition become just part of the fabric of life for us? How much has it taken over our lives?
My Little Ode To Competition Consciousness
Academy Awards. The Golden Globes. People’s Choice. The Emmy Awards. Most ignored. Most overlooked. Least deserving, most deserving, lifetime achievement. Most dissed. Least kissed. The Olympics. Presidential races. Congressional races. Gubernatorial races. City Council races. Student body races. Horse races. Dog races. Car races. Bike races. Motorcycle races. Relay races. Speed skating. The X Games. The rat race. Sweeps week. Homecoming Queen, Team Captain. Miss America. Mr. Universe. My kid made the honor roll at Alfred E. Newman High. Advanced Placement, Special Ed. The top grossing/lowest grossing movie for the weekend of…Most crime, least crime. Black, White, Yellow, Red, Brown. The biggest, the smallest, the best, the worst, recession proof, recession prone, most shoreline, least shoreline, the tallest, the shortest, the widest; cities, jobs, professions, dating services, high yield investments, buildings, rivers and canals. Default, your fault, my fault, San Andreas Fault. East Bay, South Bay, North Bay, Baghdad By the Bay. The Palestinians, the Israelis, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan. Scotland Yard, The KGB, The FBI, The CIA, Al-Qaeda, The War on Terror, Freedom Fighters. French fries, Freedom fries. The NASDAQ, The S&P. The highest paying, the lowest scoring. The Super Bowl. The French Open. Wimbledon. The Final Four. The World Series. One star. Two star. Three star. Four star. Five star. A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+ D, D-, F. Pass. Fail. Incomplete. Graduate. Don’t graduate. Ivy League, Liberal Arts, Private school, public school, Catholic school. Drop out. Gifted student. Get hired. Get fired. Get laid off. Don’t get laid off. Rich, poor, middle class, underclass, upper class. No class, classy, classless, too much class, classism…class dismissed.
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