Sports in their most popular form are just another social venue. The minority players are involved in an intricate group activity and the majority spectators are involved in a mass cult of fandom.
A Subtle person tends not to fall into either of these categories. The wide world of sports is merely another obstacle in the way of belonging to the surrounding society. Attending team rallies and wearing team paraphernalia seems exotically tribal and altogether incomprehensible.
Why?
Someone who tends to feel out of touch with the group mentality is unlikely to feel drawn to team sports and probably even less so to the idolization of team sports.
Participating in a team sport is a ritual of belonging and being part of a social machine. It is about achieving victory by taking the ‘I’ out of team and subordinating oneself to the group for the benefit of all. A career outsider naturally doesn’t perceive the appeal of engaging in team sport. Why contribute to a ritual of social endorsement when one has never felt a part of society? Why make a dramatic display of submitting to a collective when one has never felt a part of the collective?
Adulation for athletes is distasteful to the outsider. Athletes’ enormous social status gained by playing a mere game seems artificial and shallow. Those who belong by participating in and promoting a hostile social system are more enemies than sympathetic heroes or ‘role models.’ To bow down to and give the gift of adoration and loyalty to a stranger who will never know or care about you seems the lowest and most abject form of subservience.
This lowest subservience would be given to the very people who in our youths stood at the top of the pyramid in which we never had a place.
-They were the enforcers and preservers of a hostile system.
-They were the arbitrary masters of our world for no real reason that anyone could figure. The parents, the newspapers, the ‘community’, everyone seemed to place them on a pedestal for no particular reason. They were the physical manifestation of everything the system selected for. They were the nobility of social Correctness.
To article: ‘Sports Do Not Belong In Schools’
From my personal experience:
I am actually a fairly athletic person and have been involved with cross country and track and field. These are not exactly team sports, but people from the same school do work together to win. I found that I never really belonged socially even in these lower key environments because any sport overwhelmingly seems to attract those who have a collectivist mindset. Most of my teammates had exceptionally strong ties to the popular culture and saw sport primarily as a social activity
I repeatedly found myself an outsider in these organizations.
Only in cross country did I really stand a chance. This sport tends to be the lowest in terms of social prestige and it has the potential to attract nerds who have neither the coordination or the keen feel for group dynamics required to excel in team sports. Unfortunately, even cross country was not exactly a safe haven. For most participants, the sport was their cardio social session between a sedentary summer break and the popular winter games– volleyball and basketball. Members of the chess club were still in the minority. Even on the extreme, where Subtle folk could exist in the world of sport, it was still a contentious border zone whereas the classic team sports were entirely within hostile territory.
What are some of the reasons I did not quite fit in even in the friendliest possible sports environment?
Most of my teammates saw it primarily as a social activity. ‘Stretching’ often lasted half an hour to an hour. Not only do I lack shared interests with most athletes, I was seething the whole time as I thought of how I’d have time for nothing but homework by the time I finally got home. Furthermore, I approach exercise from a rationalistic perspective. Physical fitness and self improvement come first. I joined a running club so I could get better at running.
This brings me to consider:
Why is the Subtle ethic opposed with the world of sport?
Opposite values and life experiences:
The Subtle are those who have been in conflict with their social surroundings since an early age.
For some of them, lack of athletic talent/coordination have been contributing factors to their present situation of social otherness.
Society has shown itself to be an arbitrary, capricious tyrant. As such it has no legitimate claim on our lives.
A personal system of values is above the values that we are taught. Progress is achieved by progressively improving oneself.
One can always find new ways to achieve progress.
Those who are subtle cultivate a tight inner circle. They relate to and give themselves only to a few. One ought to recognize their human limits and focus on those who are most important.
Countless millions of dollars go into charity and yet world hunger is rampant: food aid only worsens the situation by spurring additional unsustainable population growth.
Athletes are those who have seamlessly integrated with their social surroundings from their earliest years. For many of them, outstanding coordination and athletic skills combined with excellent social skills have catapulted them to the heights of the orthodoxy.
Having fit in by their very nature, it seems as though society is all encompassing with a place for everyone. Those few who have difficulties just need to put in a little more effort and ‘get out more.’ The legitimacy of their society is taken for granted by virtue of its mass acceptance and their personal success within it.
To make one’s own values is a destructive departure from the group. Progress is achieved by improving the prestige of the team to which one belongs.
Progress has a tangible goal. Progress ends at the top of the pyramid whether one is trying to win the state championship or become the CEO. Outside of established structures, there is only the Void.
They sincerely believe the best way of ‘making the world a better place’ is cleaning up trash from the roadside on Sunday afternoons and giving money to monolithic charity organizations.
World hunger would disappear overnight if only more people engaged in such ‘service projects.’
Sports culture is a manifestation and promotion of Loud values. Those who excel in the world of sports naturally tend to be Loud people.
Thus one who ‘doesn’t follow sports’ can never quite an insider among those who stand within the orthodoxy.
As a celebration of all that is social and socially accepted, the world of sports is at best an obstacle and at worst a menace in the life of a true introvert.
Reading this entry reminded me of Ayn Rand’s Anthem, in which the word “I” is basically forbidden.
Aside from that, I think I never tried to join a sport activity or other team related activites when I was in school because of the very points that you made. I never felt comfortable working within a team, because I always noticed that even though the team was supposed to be focused on doing an activity of some kind, most of the people within the team tried to make it about socializing and being socially accepted within the team. So after a short while, I felt that everyone else had become friends and I was the outcast of the team because I didn’t talk as much and wasn’t outgoing like the rest of the group. I stood out like a sore thumb and felt like a reject. At that time, I didn’t know that I was introverted, though.
I went to the all the pre-meet potlucks and tried to make friends whenever I was on cross country teams. I was sooner or later the outsider nonetheless. I too
was never outgoing and orthodox enough to make it. Same old story in other organizations.
It is a bitter irony to listen to extrovert’s first advice on how meet more people: “Why don’t you join a club?”
I eventually quit sports and spent all that extra time with my actual friends instead. I continue pursuing fitness(as opposed to sport) to this day.
Thank god for weight training!
I definitely had my weight lifting phase. It’s great exercise for someone who’s been outcast. It really soothes a burning inferiority complex like none other and blows off all that pent up tension!
Mostly cross training now. I still make room for deadlift, clean and press, and bench. None of that isolation stuff I used to do.
‘It is a bitter irony to listen to extrovert’s first advice on how meet more people: “Why don’t you join a club?”’
Great observation.
I’ve been reading various posts in different sections of your site, and I’ve found myself very pleased. I myself am introverted. I’ve understood this for about two years now, when my psychology teacher became fascinated upon it. Just recently have i begun doing some browsing. I’m extremely athletic, in fact, i feel like my athleticism is the only reason i’m anywhere in the society. Countless times, I’ve listened to people tell me how intimidated they were by me because of my status. Only to find out, I was more like them than they thought. My introversion is a walking secret, instead of being pushed out by peers in the way you were throughout your childhood, I’m being pushed out by the people i would actually connect with because of a Loud assumption. So I know where your opinion of sports is coming from. My only reason for this comment is for you. To let you know, that team sports and sports in general are not poisonous to the subtle. It just kills me to hear the despise for sports from fellow introverts. Three quarters of the way through this post, i realized how silly this post would be. But i’m sticking with it. If you’re ever flipping through the channels and see a College hockey game or Nhl game, just stop to think. There’s literally may be a kid out there, that when he gets back to the bench each shift, has every movement and decision re-analyzed. Introverts are not opposed to sport. Think about the thought our brains are built for. We’re always lost up there. Our brains can comprehend near perfection much more willingly than the loud jock. You don’t have to be apart of the society to be apart of a sport.
I don’t deny that every rule is going to have its exceptions. There’s going to be some introverted people in team sports.
But what is your overall impression of the team sport community?
Is it a community that’s friendly and welcoming to people like you?
By your own admission, you feel spiritual conflict with the culture around you and feel the only reason you’re given a place is because you can give them something they want.
You enjoy your status, who wouldn’t. But perhaps ask yourself: If you woke up tomorrow and could no longer perform the physical feats that entertain them, how would they treat you?
Are you really one of them?
Imagine your life without your athletic talent and you’ve begun to see the world from the point of view of the outcasts who lump you in with the jocks.
In their circumstances, how would you feel about the jocks who everyone adores for throwing balls around while you are despised?
Every group affiliation we make in this life says something about what we want most, what kind of people we want to associate with, and where our loyalties really lie.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these outsiders do sense you have a lot in common with them.
Yet can you blame them if they conclude that for you, being popular and being far more likely to get laid comes first?
I’m sure they don’t blame you – most would probably do exactly what you’ve done if they had an opportunity to leave the social ghetto.
But under these circumstances, can they trust you?
I empathise with Sebastian to an extent. I myself have recently come to terms with the fact I am an introvert. It an ironic scenario for me, as I have just completed an undergraduate then Masters degree in Physical Education – so my entire uni experience (heavily involved in dealing with/socialising with real people) has, perhaps, gone against what I naturally should feel inclined to do as as an introvert and I have had to develop a form of ‘Camouflage’ to best fit in. I also played premier rugby throughout my time at uni. I guess in reflection, many a time I have felt an outsider in Rugby, I am big, strong, fit and fast – so do okay in the sport itself as an individual, however, not so much in the social scene of things – that’s where the outsiderness came in. To be honest I believe the lack of social skill (if I ever did okay socially it was probably faked) to best fit in meant I never really reached my potential in the sport – I lacked the confidence to try new things in the game and was generally much more quiet on the field as a player, which wasn’t a positive thing – according to the coaches and fellow players – despite the fact I was hitting every ruck and working like a workhorse. This has made me a little cynical of the sport on the whole for that reason. One can be a good team sport athlete, but if they are quiet and introverted they are stigmatized and don’t do as well for that reason alone. Its a crying shame really – I wish there was more understanding of introverts in sport.
It’s cool that Sebastian is a talented athlete, and as I’ve pointed out, most outsiders would jump at the opportunity to at least have a secure place in the in-crowd.
But each hobby or discipline disproportionately attracts a certain breed.
Sports attract an overwhelmingly Loud, outgoing, collectively minded community.
Realistically, Sebastian is going to find himself an outsider on sports teams and other outsiders are going to mistrust him for being involved in team sports. He’s in a bit of a bind and there’s not really any easy answer, a clear right or wrong in his situation.
In your case, why exactly would being noisy on the field be such an important thing? Is it about being a better player or is being noisy just a trait that noisy people like and encourage?
After all, it’s what they like to do anyway and it’s an easy way they can distinguish themselves from people who aren’t like them.
Might you have been more willing to try new things on the field if you didn’t feel insecure about your place in the group?
After all, how motivated are we to take risks if the group might cast us out for failure?
Humans are instinctually group creatures. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good player if you don’t fit in well with the group. In which case, other people who fit the ethos better will be favored over you no matter how hard you try.
Here’s a way to simplify things, I suppose:
Do you feel the group wants you to become someone else or does it affirm who you are?
If you answer this question, you might have some idea whether they’d ever help you if you were no longer useful to them.