What’s so important to you that you’d like to take it to your grave?

By David McElroy · August 4, 2012

Meet Nate Davis. He’s such a devoted fan of the University of Alabama’s football team that he’s covered roughly 70 percent of his upper body (so far) with tattoos attesting to his love of a school and a football team. Because of his fanaticism, he’s made himself a laughingstock to many people who consider him crazy or weird. But he doesn’t care, because he ultimately seems more dedicated to Alabama football than anything else in life.

I started thinking about Davis Friday evening because of an 8-minute ESPN film I’d seen earlier in the day. The short film deals with people around the country who have taken their love of various sports teams to the graves. They’ve been buried in team jerseys and caskets bearing the logos of the teams they cheered for. One man even had his funeral with his body propped up in a recliner, with a television showing Pittsburgh Steelers football games. (You can watch the short film at the end of this article.)

Are these people crazy?

My first instinct is to call them crazy, but I suspect there’s a bit more going on than that. I believe we all need purpose and some subject upon which to focus our energies. Without that, we become bored, lethargic and rudderless. When people become this kind of “super fan,” it merely means that they filled an empty spot in their lives — one that was devoid of purpose — with an obsession for a team.

Why that sport? Why that team? I’m not sure it matters why. When there’s an empty spot in a life, I suspect the first thing rushes in that makes itself seem socially acceptable at the moment — because we crave something to identify with and something to devote ourselves to.

For others, it might be music or gaming or books or partying or a thousand other things. But whatever thing takes that central focus in your life becomes your purpose and passion. You might become a sports super fan. You might become the ultimate Xbox nerd. You might become an expert on Star Trek trivia.

Or you could do something that actually matters — something that could fill your need for purpose and also make the world a better place.

What I’d like to suggest is that the things that people get attached to are frequently interchangeable. And I’d like to suggest that we would be happier with our lives if we found something worthwhile to latch onto.

If you’re going to be obsessed with something — at least enough to make it a driving purpose in your life — wouldn’t it be better to be purposeful in choosing it? Instead of letting yourself get obsessed about football games or baseball games, wouldn’t it be better to find your meaning in something more in keeping with your higher values?

If you’re a Christian, for instance, that might be ministry through your church or another organization. It might even be moving into a full-time ministry role. It might just be getting seriously involved with a homeless shelter or a prison ministry. There are dozens of things you could choose from. But wouldn’t it be better to be intentional in your selection — rather than just taking whatever drifted into your life and became a habit?

Something is going to become a religion in your life. It might be work. It might be a sports team. It might be alcohol or drugs. It might be gambling. It might be loving and protecting your wife and children. It might be serving others.

Since you need a purpose, isn’t it better to pick one intentionally? If you just take whatever shows up in your life, you might wake up one day and realize you’ve become the local version of Nate Davis.

When you go to your grave, wouldn’t you like to have something more important to take with you than tattoos of a long-dead football coach or some team’s jerseys? I enjoy some sports, so I don’t object to enjoying them. In fact, I’m a Crimson Tide football fan, just as Davis is, but it’s just a game, not an obsession, to me.

Choose your purpose and make it your obsession if you want to, but choose wisely. We only get to experience this life once. Make it worth it. When you die, take something worth living for to your grave with you.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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