I've been thinking about hope a lot lately--a topic that is tough to think about for too long without beginning to assess and eventually doubt one's own mental state. Hope is a funny thing. If you have too much hope, you're a grinning lunatic that mothers herd their children away from. If you hold on to too little hope, you're the depressive in a trench coat that mothers herd their children away from. Society has a very strictly defined limit of how much hope is "normal" to keep on your person. You know, like body hair. Or hard liquor. Or marijuana in California.
I was initially pondering this mystery whilst watching Greece play Germany in the Euro 2012 quarterfinals (I know, that was like 2 weeks ago: I've been procrastinating). I was assuming a pro-Hellenic stance, on account of my distant Greek roots and a strong distaste for sauerkraut. I had very little logical reason to believe Greece would win. By every objective measure, the Greeks stood about as much chance to win the match as they had to muck out the Augean stables of their economy. Sorry, I couldn't pass up a good economy joke. Logically, I had about two dozen better things to be doing with my time--sleeping, eating, writing letters to Congress--but like the sucker I am I tuned in anyways. I then proceeded to be not surprised at all at how the Germans were controlling every facet of the game. Exactly like they were expected to do. It was an act of Zeus they went into the break down a mere one goal. Spirits, I must confess, were low. I looked in the fridge, to evaluate my beer supplies. Rationalizations began to be formed. Hope, in short, was running low.
So imagine my surprise, and jubilation, when "Greek Jesus" Georgios Samaras knocked a low cross past Manuel Neuer to level things at one. And just like that, my imagination was kicked into high gear. The Greek attack was looking formidable: one goal out of one chance! With that conversion rate, we can hardly lose! The Germans were playing sloppily--it's further proof that blond-haired, blue-eyed people can never fully subjugate the darker races! Sorry, I couldn't pass up a good Holocaust joke. For five giddy minutes, the possibilities were endless. Of course, after those five minutes the karmic universe righted itself, Sami Khedira banged home a full volley, Miroslav Klose nodded home a third, and then Marco Reus buried the Greeks with a thunderbolt volley. Beers were consumed, mourning colors were donned, and sacrifices were made to Ares so that his wrath may be called down upon the German nation.
In one sense, the defeat was completely expected and justifiable: Greece had been the obviously inferior side for the full 90 minutes. But in another sense, it was brutal. I had genuinely believed that Greece had a puncher's chance for those five minutes. I let my guard down. Most sports fans (especially fans of bad teams) will always swear that they're not going to drop their guard, and that they can always expect the worst, and that nothing will ever change their mindset. But I think they're all liars. Inside, we all get excited by the possibilities. And yes, they're usually crushed. Logically we should know better. But for some reason, the chump in all of us will continue to believe that it'll happen. Otherwise, why watch?
After a win today, my Orioles sit at 44-37, a record whose respectability is exceeded by it's improbability. The Orioles, as you may be aware, aren't a very good team. Since 1997 (our last playoff berth) we've started pretty much every year knowing that we're not going to the playoffs, we're not winning the World Series, and we probably won't even play respectably for long stretches of the summer. So why watch? Why give up our precious time and hard-earned dollars to follow a team that is best described as "fucking train wreck"? Hope. Hope that we'll put some pieces together and surprise the baseball-following world with our new-found competence, exactly as we have for the first half of this season. Logically, I know it'll probably end sometime in July or August. But I'm sure as hell going to be watching to find out.
I've been going on for five paragraphs now about hope in sports, which is OK, but makes for an unsatisfying ending to a column. "That's all well and good," I hear you saying, "but where's your point?" So far, I guess the closest thing I have to a point is some trite moral about the virtues of moderation in all things, especially hope. Which is a really shitty point, to be honest.
So I was sitting here, reflecting on said shittiness and getting ready to go to work, when I had a thought. I have lots of thoughts throughout the day, but most of them aren't as good as this one was. I was putting on my black clothes and non-slip shoes for another evening of waiting tables and dealing with shitty customers, I thought about myself and my coworkers. Waiting tables isn't a terribly prestigious job, the sort of occupation that makes beautiful women open to your seduction. Everybody that works in food-service believes it to be a strictly temporary thing, a way to make money until they start their "real" career. And this is probably true, to at least a minimal degree. But there are people there in their early 30s who are still "stalling". How do they keep from going insane and shooting up the entire restaurant before turning the guns on their own now-slightly-greying heads?
Because they have hope. Hope of a better job, hope of a promotion in the restaurant, hope of winning the lottery or having a wealthy relative die unexpectedly bequeath them everything. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it gets you out of bed in the morning. If there's one thing to take away from this, it's this: you don't need a Greek Jesus to give you hope. You can do it yourself. Just like....well, nevermind.
