Masters Swimmers Acting Like Triathletes

Humans are a very social and hierarchical species. We may say that we do not crave status, but the overwhelming majority of us spend our lives trying to increase our status and climb the next rung on the ladder of success. We measure our success against our peers in many domains--keeping up with the Jones's at home in the suburbs, jockeying about for that coveted promotion at work, trying to beat our comrades in sports, etc. Some have argued that men are more competitive than women, but I am not sure this is the case. There may be some differences in the domains in which we compete, but that is beyond the scope of this comment. Not everybody can be the winner, and nobody wants to be a loser. The only people who want to be losers are those who have embraced Nietzsche's resentiment philosophy--if you want something but can't obtain it for yourself, you downgrade its value and adopt its opposite as truly noble aspiration. The early Jews wanted the power of the Romans but weren't able to get it, so they devalued power and made "blessed are the meek" and "turn the other cheek" into new virtues. Mr. Negative, by even the choice of your name, your seem to be riddled with resentiment. I will hand it to you, Mr. N: you are a very amusing fellow with your snide quips worthy of Oscar Wilde in full male *** mode! (CreamPuff, by the way, do you know what f'n beech means in Italian? It is not what you think. This was no insult but rather the world record holder's highest compliment. The "f'in" just means fin--Italians! how they love to add meaningless syllables!--as in the oars of fish; "beech" refers to what whales sometimes do after long disorienting swims of the sort your practice appears to have been. He was simply admiring your superbly designed swimmer's limbs (your "f'ins") and implying that he wanted you to beech with him (sit in pool chairs for a while) after practice. Back to Mr. N. As suggested elsewhere in these forums, I am not a psychoanalyst, but I do believe I could be a beloved fake psychoanalyst in parts of Appalachia where they still believe in things like penis envy. Permit me to do a brief, and I daresay frighteningly accurate, psychiatric vivisection of you that I think will help you better understand yourself and help you become a better person, maybe--given enough years--even a decent person. You are relatively young You either were, or wished you were, a very good sub-elite swimmer in your youth, and you swam up to college You derived a certain amount of status from this; it is quite possible that the gender of your choice actually admired your swimming, and you occasionally found your head spinning from the dizzy flattery of the girls or, possibly, boys alas, some times has passed since your swimming glory years; some time has gathered on your swimming times, too; suffice it to say, you have decided you can't go home again--that the glory you once got (or hoped you might get) from that particular well is gone You see people, Lilliputian people in your somewhat jaded eyes, who continue--even into their dotage! revolting! stuff their fat in rubber suits post haste!--scrambling to swim competitive times in their age groups, and--here comes the part you cannot in any way abide!--take some pleasure in their accomplishments It matters naught to you that most of us have numerous hierarchical domains in our lives--we are doing the best we can at our jobs (if we stil have jobs), we are doing our best in our families, we are doing our best to raise our kids to be decent and trying not to compare them to the super wunderkinds all around, we are, in short, trying to achieve some sense of status in our lives, not perhaps because we want to, not because we are vain, but because we are human beings, and human beings are designed this way! As swine seek truffles so are we driven creatures who root and snort and dig for status relentlessly! It matters naught to you that arguably the most pathetic of all humans are those of us who have few domains at all where there is even a chance to get fingernail up and out of the total absorbing mediocrity that is the fate of most people to endure. If swimming lets one such person say to themselves--in this one thing, I am slightly above average!--what is to you to deny them this pleasure, to point out the pathos of their happiness? There was one fellow who used to post here constantly, whose name is now simply refered to as "he who must not be mentioned", who perhaps fit your profile of self-absorbed swimming malefactor perfectly: an absolutely-obsessed-by-swimming kind of fellow who, with the exception of some of his more ludicrous claims to swimming glory based upon the age at which he took up the sport, appeared to have NOTHING AT ALL in his life. Such a fellow--a triathlete's triathlete by your description, albeit one who didn't run or bike, only swam, slowly, while desperately holding on to his illusions--is easy to lampoon, and in fact, the fellow was eventually hounded out of this forum. I say to you, Mr. Negative: see if you can rally support for the old recreation of taking your family to see the local insane asylum on weekends. You appear to take great delight in exposing human frailities and obsessions and vanities! How much fun it would be to see the most extreme examples of such: strutting King Ferdinands twitching from decades of Thorazine, their pomposity all the more risible because to them it seems almost a form of dignity! Ah, a bad end I spy for you, Mr. Negative! I know your kind! I am, you see, cut from the same cloth, one designed, evidently, not to slash but rather to maximize drag forces during life's bitter passage!

Humans are a very social and hierarchical species. We may say that we do not crave status, but the overwhelming majority of us spend our lives trying to increase our status and climb the next rung on the ladder of success. We measure our success against our peers in many domains--keeping up with the Jones's at home in the suburbs, jockeying about for that coveted promotion at work, trying to beat our comrades in sports, etc. Some have argued that men are more competitive than women, but I am not sure this is the case. There may be some differences in the domains in which we compete, but that is beyond the scope of this comment. Not everybody can be the winner, and nobody wants to be a loser. The only people who want to be losers are those who have embraced Nietzsche's resentiment philosophy--if you want something but can't obtain it for yourself, you downgrade its value and adopt its opposite as truly noble aspiration. The early Jews wanted the power of the Romans but weren't able to get it, so they devalued power and made "blessed are the meek" and "turn the other cheek" into new virtues. Mr. Negative, by even the choice of your name, your seem to be riddled with resentiment. I will hand it to you, Mr. N: you are a very amusing fellow with your snide quips worthy of Oscar Wilde in full male *** mode! (CreamPuff, by the way, do you know what f'n beech means in Italian? It is not what you think. This was no insult but rather the world record holder's highest compliment. The "f'in" just means fin--Italians! how they love to add meaningless syllables!--as in the oars of fish; "beech" refers to what whales sometimes do after long disorienting swims of the sort your practice appears to have been. He was simply admiring your superbly designed swimmer's limbs (your "f'ins") and implying that he wanted you to beech with him (sit in pool chairs for a while) after practice. Back to Mr. N. As suggested elsewhere in these forums, I am not a psychoanalyst, but I do believe I could be a beloved fake psychoanalyst in parts of Appalachia where they still believe in things like penis envy. Permit me to do a brief, and I daresay frighteningly accurate, psychiatric vivisection of you that I think will help you better understand yourself and help you become a better person, maybe--given enough years--even a decent person. You are relatively young You either were, or wished you were, a very good sub-elite swimmer in your youth, and you swam up to college You derived a certain amount of status from this; it is quite possible that the gender of your choice actually admired your swimming, and you occasionally found your head spinning from the dizzy flattery of the girls or, possibly, boys alas, some times has passed since your swimming glory years; some time has gathered on your swimming times, too; suffice it to say, you have decided you can't go home again--that the glory you once got (or hoped you might get) from that particular well is gone You see people, Lilliputian people in your somewhat jaded eyes, who continue--even into their dotage! revolting! stuff their fat in rubber suits post haste!--scrambling to swim competitive times in their age groups, and--here comes the part you cannot in any way abide!--take some pleasure in their accomplishments It matters naught to you that most of us have numerous hierarchical domains in our lives--we are doing the best we can at our jobs (if we stil have jobs), we are doing our best in our families, we are doing our best to raise our kids to be decent and trying not to compare them to the super wunderkinds all around, we are, in short, trying to achieve some sense of status in our lives, not perhaps because we want to, not because we are vain, but because we are human beings, and human beings are designed this way! As swine seek truffles so are we driven creatures who root and snort and dig for status relentlessly! It matters naught to you that arguably the most pathetic of all humans are those of us who have few domains at all where there is even a chance to get fingernail up and out of the total absorbing mediocrity that is the fate of most people to endure. If swimming lets one such person say to themselves--in this one thing, I am slightly above average!--what is to you to deny them this pleasure, to point out the pathos of their happiness? There was one fellow who used to post here constantly, whose name is now simply refered to as "he who must not be mentioned", who perhaps fit your profile of self-absorbed swimming malefactor perfectly: an absolutely-obsessed-by-swimming kind of fellow who, with the exception of some of his more ludicrous claims to swimming glory based upon the age at which he took up the sport, appeared to have NOTHING AT ALL in his life. Such a fellow--a triathlete's triathlete by your description, albeit one who didn't run or bike, only swam, slowly, while desperately holding on to his illusions--is easy to lampoon, and in fact, the fellow was eventually hounded out of this forum. I say to you, Mr. Negative: see if you can rally support for the old recreation of taking your family to see the local insane asylum on weekends. You appear to take great delight in exposing human frailities and obsessions and vanities! How much fun it would be to see the most extreme examples of such: strutting King Ferdinands twitching from decades of Thorazine, their pomposity all the more risible because to them it seems almost a form of dignity! Ah, a bad end I spy for you, Mr. Negative! I know your kind! I am, you see, cut from the same cloth, one designed, evidently, not to slash but rather to maximize drag forces during life's bitter passage!