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For the Love of the Game

M. Limaye - Feb. 2006

I love college football. What I mean to say is that I really, really love college football. If I don't have anything pressing to do, I will sit down and watch titans like Arkansas State and Memphis do battle in the Salad Bowl weeks before anything with the initials B.C.S. darkens the calendar.

Some years ago this interest - some would deem it an obsession - led me to buy a 65" widescreen high definition television for my living room. It was the ultimate guy's toy, and the logic was simple: If having a 3" tall Heisman trophy winner race through your living room was good, having a 10" tall Heisman trophy winner do so with surround sound was going to be that much better. (I'll pause here for a moment to let all of you guys who are paying weekly visits to Best Buy wipe the drool off your keyboards.)

Somehow, it didn't turn out that way. Certainly, the TV set was a nice. The picture was clear, and the sound of high quality. Still, I found myself watching it less than I thought I would have.

If my university's alumni association was having a game watch, the enjoyment I gained by attending far exceeded that which 1080i resolution could provide. On a cold Saturday morning, sleeping in and watching Gameday on the 13" set in the bedroom beat crawling out of bed to gain screen space.

When I finally made the decision to move onboard my sailboat Ariadne, this wonderful piece of five year old technology quite literally became an anchor.

In the end, a TV set taught me something about human nature. The love of the game is found not in the size of the screen on which it is watched, but rather in the plays that are made on the field.

It's possible to reach a point where you no longer own your things, but your things own you. I reached that point when I bought a television set 3/4 as wide as the living room in which it was to sit. Someone else might reach that point when they find themselves paying monthly fees to store nearly forgotten things in a mini storage unit for years as they rot away.

In the end, a low end lifestyle is not about what we can or cannot afford, but rather about saving us from our own greed.

Of course, this is a message that runs completely contrary to the Madison Avenue element of society, which advocates a form of debt-financed indentured servitude to have all of the latest and greatest now.

It is, however, a message that was well understood by someone far more famous, who I'm sure will not mind my borrowing His words: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where DLP and LCD make obsolete, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where product cycles doth not make obsolete, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

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For the Love of the Game

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