Immunity
How many diseases are there that strike fear in our hearts because either there is no vaccination to prevent them or said vaccine is scarce? Immunity has a positive connotation and I don’t normally couple the word with excitement. Raise your hand if you want to be immune to emotions that produce exhilaration – Excitement Immunity.
Sometimes I feel that somewhere along the line I lost my excitement or at least buried it creating a dormancy that has been difficult to surmount. What excitement? I’m talking about the “smiling, hip-hop hooray, text messaging everybody I know” type of excitement that I had when I was getting ready for my fourth grade role as the cowardly lion in the school’s production of the Wizard of Oz in 1984-85.
There’s a coarse cynicism that that has been canonized by modern culture and I can clearly see how it ambushed me and other men. Opportunities too stellar for words occur on the court, at the job and in ways that can change our lives permanently but I’ve seen myself in my own mind as people ask, “Aren’t you excited?” There’s a coolness that has replaced the boy like exuberance that keeps kids up late on Christmas Eve. It’s as if I learned to be embarrassed by excitement – that it was a sign of immaturity and naivety. I couldn’t have been more errant. If I learned one thing from playing and not playing basketball it is that excitement propels you. It means you still possess hope and the willingness to participate in meaningful activity. It means you’re alive. The Pointer Sisters once sang that they were so excited they just couldn’t hide it and I’ve become good at the hiding part. But I repent today, for to regain my zeal is to release myself to see opportunity as divine, a gift which deserves nothing less than my utmost excitement.
Posted: by Norman Anthony
Category: For Further Study, Skills
haha. I just read this again and man, it fits our volleyball team to a T. There’s two of us who always try to get the team jacked up and excited to play but it almost never rubs off on any of them. When it does its only for a short time before the team goes back into their shell and stops getting excited. I understand that its hard because I used to be the ‘too cool’ person who thought showing happy emotions was uncool. But still its like talking to a wall every time and can get quite annoying.
Feelin’ you Tom. So your vball team is like the other 3.2 billion men on the planet afraid to show emotion in the form of excitement. But where did we learn such buffonish behavior is my question? You gotta get up to really get it done. I’m learning hard. Keep me psoted.