For something different, we went for dinner to a hot wings place with my wife's sister's family to eat and watch game five of the Finnish championships. We don't buy the streaming for the hockey at home since we don't watch it much, but if they won tonight, they would finish the series as champions, for the third year in a row.
Which they did.
What is interesting is that there are two teams in the city and they have shared a home rink for many years. Over the last couple decades, the other used to struggle a lot, largely because they couldn't gather the money to build a better team. However, that has changed over the last five years, and now they are competing near the top also.
What has changed is that they are still sharing a home rink, but the city has built a quality entertainment center in the city center, that attracts a lot of shows, including world championship games and big name acts. This means that the city has been able to draw money away from the capital Helsinki, and some percentage of this goes to the teams. This has helped both teams build stronger and deeper lineups.
Isn't it silly?
While I like watching sport from time to time, as I like to see people excel at what they like to do, I also think that there is a lot of wastage in resources. We build entertainment centers, not hospitals and research facilities. We spend endless amounts on occupying our minds, but spend almost no time looking at ways we can improve ourselves and this world.
But of course, the excuse is that we all need downtime, we all need to get away from the serious stuff and spend some time doing something just for the hell of it. However, I also think that in the last few decades, the amount of time we expect to spend has grown massively, as have the ways we spend our time entertaining ourselves. For instance, a lot of people will go to a concert and say that they deserve the treat in entertainment, but how many people count the numerous hours they spend a day scrolling through the internet and streaming content as part of their downtime? What about other hobbies and exercise?
I don't remember my parents having so much entertainment activities. Did yours?
While it is impossible to truly compare, I wonder if there was an objective "which was better" time to live, when would that have been? A lot of people are complaining that life is very hard now due to the complexity of society and the economic stresses, but is it the case, or do we just buy into a much harder life, because we choose to spend so much of our time and resources avoiding work with entertainment?
What is a healthy level?
Tonight was the last game for one of the players, as he is at the ripe old age of 39 and is ready to retire. Not a bad way to go finishing with a championship, but still, it must be incredibly strange to be at that age, still playing at the top level, and ending a career that started 35 years ago. Sure, the first 15 years were largely unpaid, but the last twenty has taken him to the NHL, world championship medals, an Olympic bronze and national championships. Assuming there is about 40 years left in his life, what's next?
This is something I find interesting with elite sport, as whether there is money in the sport or not, to be in the global elite takes a massive amount of work for years on end. I think that this is part of the attraction for me when I watch sport, as it is seeing people who have committed to the pursuit of improvement, or at least maintenance when they get a bit older. And then, it just stops.
One of my friends was a professional hockey player in Finland and Sweden, and was able to play into his early forties because he worked so incredibly hard on his fitness, and rehab from the many injuries. For a time after he stopped playing, while he had many options in front of him, he really didn't know what to do with himself once the multiple trainings a day ended for the first time in his life. He had what must have felt like all the time in the world - but nothing to do.
Kind of funny though, isn't it? People rushing to retirement, yet the people who retire, don't seem to be much happier than anyone else, and many seem far less happy, as they don't have something to spend their time on that makes them feel relevant. But, maybe it comes down to what else is going on in life at the time of retirement also. For instance, my in-laws spent their early retirement looking after their grandkids, which they loved. But, what about all those people in the future who chose not to have families now?
I think retirement in 39 years from now is going to look quite different than today.
Not much to look back on other than time spent entertaining oneself. Not much to look forward to. And not much to do in the moment.
There is always Netflix.
Taraz
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