so it’s past 5 am, and for whatever reason, I can’t sleep. so I’m lying here on the couch, watching the Australian Open coverage (if you know me, you know I would watch a snail fight if it was competitive – not to say tennis is not awesome – these guys are crazy good athletes). so this fluff piece about Andy Roddick came on, and I found it compelling. it was basically about how he has matured as a human being, and how he has learned how to become gracious even in losing. and the moral I found to the story was not that one should be gracious, or the significance of maturity. what I realized was how truly amazing it is to me that I cared about any aspect of Andy Roddick’s life. here is a man who will, in all probability, never have any impact on me personally. in the overall scheme of life, he will probably have an extremely small impact on anything – he’ll set a few tennis records, maybe.
but yet, even if only for a fleeting moment, I cared to learn about this man’s life. and I realized, that it was the same interest I’ve shown many a time before, for every random person I’ve met. and met, knowing that I would talk to this person for oh, maybe, 5 to 10 minutes, then shake their hand and know that I would never see or speak to this person again. what is it, built into the human condition, that I should truly care about and give credence to something so apparently impertinent to my interests? surely not natural selection, or anything of the sort (and don’t get me wrong, I believe in “natural selection” in the sense that it fits into “survival of the fittest”, true Christianity, and logic, all that to say, microevolution).
no, there is something more. and as a man of (what I wish to call, at least) logic, this is the sort of thing I find inexplicable by science. it is only explained by – a thing which all too often is lost in the darkness – mankind’s ingrained love for one another. and as a man of love and peace, a modern-day hippie of sorts but not really, I’m happy to come to such a conclusion. my only hope is that, even through my jaded and oftentimes sardonic outlook, I will never lose that glimmer of love.
maybe I was just in the philosophical mood because of the whole Judaism vs Christianity conversation I just had (thanks a lot guys). Roddick’s on now, pretty sure he’s gonna win.