There was an article in my paper today, complete with tragic photos, of the end result of a police chase. The police cruiser wound up crashing into the car of a returning Iraqi War soldier. It is indeed tragic, for I know all too well what the surviving family must be feeling. Their grief is justified; the newspaper’s editorializing of it is not.
What I can expect, as anyone can, is a full series in coming editions of newspapers around the country about the perils of enforcing the law. We’ll get back to that shortly…
There is an old axiom in football: Don’t play to lose! This, of course, was borne out of the advent and subsequent practice of the “prevent defense”. Teams that have played a remarkable 55 minutes of football would suddenly revert to the “prevent defense” in the closing minutes of a close-scoring game. The end result more times than not was that the better team played so cautiously at the end that they “protected their lead into a loss”.
So the very fear of losing ended in a loss anyway. I call this a colassal waste. Much the same as I do the current trends designed to cheat death. It’s why I so love the quote: “Healthy is simply the slowest rate at which one can die”.
We have a mentality sweeping this country that I can only equate to this very principle, that being the prevent defense. We are being herded into fat camps, spas and fitness gyms and coerced into eating things that make us gag, all in the name of “preventing death”. We have this deluded collective mindset that this is even possible. This is what frightens and saddens me.
While we should be enjoying a victory lap clearly in view, we pull back and begin trying to vigorously protect the likelihood that we’ll get there at all. All we manage to accomplish is making ourselves miserable in the futile quest to live just a little longer, but to what end? We give up every possible enjoyment (or vice, if you prefer) in the hopes of prolonging our lives. But trading happiness for longevity seems to me to be nothing short of insane. The more miserable we become by depriving ourselves of simple pleasures, the longer we can endure the loss of the source of our joy. Can anyone explain the logic of this to me?
Back to the police crash tragedy…there have been articles and ideas previous to this story which advocated restraint in pursuit, and I thought them to be as crazy then as I anticipate I will in the coming days.
We can expect more calls for the police to “just let them go” because chasing them will only place innocent people in danger. There is truth to this to some degree, which leads me back to the prevent defense.
Should we, as a society, allow criminals to run roughshod over us because trying to apprehend them may result in an unfortunate accident? Or should we hope that the public safety will be better served by removing the certainty that, if left to their own devices, the perpetrators will strike again, and soon?
We must re-learn how to live and not be so worried about not dying.
I am not saying that exercise is all bad, as long as it is designed to make one feel better. All I’m saying is that if you’re doing it under duress in the impossible hope of preventing your eventual demise, it won’t work.
Live well, die happy.
-Woody
