When I Love Something, I Love it Forever

Can you rant with appreciation? We're gonna find out together.

I am an avid fan of movies, TV, and popular culture. And by fan, I mean that I spent twenty-five years of my life on the internet ripping all of those things into shreds. It was, and remains, one of the most wildly unproductive parts of my psyche. Not liking something isn’t a personality trait. 

The flip side of that is that when I love something, I love it forever. 

Which is absolutely a line from the latest episode of “Ted Lasso”, another show that I unabashedly love and will rail against any slander or libel it faces. Synergy.

These are my two wolves - liking something too much and hating something...instinctively. 

Loving a thing is fine because deep down you know that the thing can’t love you back. It can’t hate you, either. But hating a thing...hate is a consuming expenditure of energy. But everywhere you turn, there is hate to be found. Hate for vaccines. Hate for media. Hate for politics. Hate for other countries, races, and faiths. Hell, hate for the government itself.   

(Don’t worry, I’m not getting in my car and heading for the canceled cliff. I have many years of jokes and anecdotes left within me still. Probably.)

I literally have “Love and Hate” tattooed on the inside of my bicep. And it’s in Latin because I am/can be pretentious and argumentative. It’s the inherent nature of confidence versus indifference. 

I can be very demanding of people that I work with. Whether that’s working on a podcast, co-writing something, editing a piece, or even something as simple as a promotional social media post. If my name is on it and it sucks, I get upset. But the reality is that not everything you create or work on can be groundbreaking or amazing. Most of the time it’s scaling walls, not smashing through them.

That’s the dirty secret about writing that writers don’t tell you. We are never satisfied with what we turn in. We always want another sentence or another paragraph to make it perfect. Turning an article in is giving up on it. You made this thing that you put as much of yourself that you could put into it at the time and then when you were out of energy or ideas or exhausted, you surrendered it. To an editor, which is also Latin for “Enemy”. I think. 

I used to be like this when I played lacrosse, too. The goals were like little bursts of light in an infinite darkness made up of my mistakes. It’s not just lacrosse; it’s all things. A galaxy of dimming stars that require more and more power to luminesce. I remember all my mistakes, not my goals or assists. I used to think that’s how it was supposed to be.  

How insane does that sound? Does that sound like a fun way to experience...anything? 

I also used to really love arguing with people. Partly because I am a passionate person but also because I am very good at it. I’m the last person you want to have a knockdown drag-out fight with. 

Or, rather - I was. 

Now...the thrill of winning an argument means so little. Pettiness isn’t funny. It’s sad. Being right isn’t as important as letting shit go. 

I don’t really know what this article is about. It’s just a wrestling match between who I am, who I was, and what people want me to be. I had a few experiences in the last few months that have really affected me. When you sit in a small room with just your computer and a mandate to catalog the sport that you love, there’s a lot of contemplation tempered by even more pressure to do it right. 

Inevitably, I will fail at that task. You can’t write a universally accepted and/or lauded piece; not even in the microscopic world of lacrosse. It’s not possible to make everyone happy. You have to make yourself happy first. That’s literally what this newsletter was created for. I just wanted to thank you for reading it. For sticking with me. It means a lot. 

I have some great ideas that have actually started to progress now that there is some downtime in the industry and I’m not just talking about all the new gear being trapped on cargo ships on the west coast. Clean it up, lacrosse manufacturers. It looks a lot like a lacrosse atrocity is on the horizon.

Because I’m finally writing a book.