I have never been a big one for challenges. Challenge me to a duel and I will try to slither out of the deal. Show up at dawn with your second, awaiting me and my second and our choice of weapons and you will wait a long time. I don't mind dying for a a good cause but I haven't found one good enough yet.
I suspected the instructor or coach who challenged us to double our efforts and win the game for our side of engaging in cheap manipulation. But, I have seen that challenges can indeed energize, mobilize. I once watched a little boy of 2 or 3 dawdle over his spinach. He didn't show any enthusiasm for the stuff. Then, his mom said that she thought she could finish her spinach before Spike could finish his. Zoom! His spinach disappeared and he was gleefully the WINNER! See, he WON! Have you ever won a spinach-eating contest against your mom? Well, he did. He won! You didn't win. He did. He won.
A famous challenge was issued by President John Kennedy. He said the US would land on the moon by a given year. I am not completely sure what had to be accomplished by the space people between the president's statement and the moment when US astronauts did indeed walk right on the moon surface. It seems very possible that we might not have ever gotten to the moon had Kennedy not issued a challenge.
Challenges and competition are basics of male life. I think the little red-headed girl is very beautiful but so does Charlie Brown. She just calmly eats her lunch but Charlie and I watch her lovingly and we watch each other warily. Brothers are famous for such rivalry. Even though one brother is older and more mature and a very tough competitor, that doesn't mean that the younger brother is going to capitulate and just give in. Ha, ha, no, Sir!
If you want to get some insight into the place of competition and challenge in the life of boys and men, read "Fighting for Life" by the Jesuit scholar Walter Ong. Ong is well-known for his explorations of the impact of writing on societies but "Fighting for Life" makes clear the many ways that different societies have both suffered and exploited the male impulse to fight, to contest and to try to win out over others.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
