“Calm down, it’s only a game!” – Why our passions mean everything and nothing.

Author: Jay-Jay Hancocks (jayjayhancocks@gmail.com)

Copyrights: "A man caring slightly too much about dock reflections" by MildlyDiverting is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.

As someone who takes the things he loves very seriously, I often find myself feeling personally attacked when someone does not see eye to eye. For example, I take criticisms of my favourite bands as a criticism of me – I take people discrediting the importance of my other love, football, as somewhat of a deal breaker in whether or not this particular conversation will continue. I cannot let these things lie without some form of reaction. My usual retorts range from the wonderfully childish “no, no, that’s bullsh*t, you’re wrong, you’ve just been told to say that by social media”, to the ever so slightly more academic “Hmmm, now where does this incorrect opinion come from?”. Both are meant to come across as playful sarcasm, but due to my actual annoyance at what my conversational partner is saying (I am reluctant to use the word friend here, based on what they’re about to say about a particular love of mine), I find it almost impossible to hide my underlying frustrations, and therefore completely miss the intended playful nature. Now, for the most part, I feel it should be me apologising for my inability to control these somewhat over-the-top reactions. However, there is just one particular type of comment that I, perhaps unfortunately, will never be able to get over. Comments like - “it’s only a game” or “it’s not that important”, really, really get on my nerves.

In part, I know that this is perhaps yet another trivial thing that I am getting far too worked up about, and I have largely accepted this in recent years, but I feel this is something that needs to be addressed. This article has been written particularly with generations born in the mid to late 90s and onwards in mind, whose complete dedication to care about absolutely nothing and everything in the same breath is worthy of mention in itself. Of course, football is ‘just a game’ in principle, ‘music’ is just noise, but you can say that about absolutely anything. Books are just words on paper, sandwiches are just two bits of bread with ingredients in between, and candles are just tubular shapes made of bees wax. It is the coward’s response to someone who has opened themselves up to something and allowed themselves to potentially fail in finding something they love. These passions are the things that give our lives meaning and without them, life is, to put it bluntly, fairly pointless. The interaction with our passions is the thing that makes us human, different from other species. The magic lies in our ability to enjoy, create, perform and take part in. So forgive me, but I will continue to challenge people when they say “football is just a game, why are you so emotional?”, it is because in this particular instance, one of the things that gives my life context, is doing its thing and I am here to see it happen.

This is not an article specifically about football. If it were, I would address the glaringly obvious signs that its reach is far more than that of ‘just a game’. As we know from this year’s FIFA World Cup, it is for many negative reasons, not without problem. There is baggage attached to the world’s most popular sport, and I felt it necessary to address that at this point, before I continued. With this piece of writing, I am not claiming that our hobbies and passions are to be left uncriticized, untouched and in their purest form, as things are rarely so simple. I am merely trying to hint at a society that allows people to immerse themselves into a hobby and potential passion, without fear of having the rug pulled from under their feet by a prolific pessimist who is too afraid to leave themselves open to failure.

I realise that the topic of this article is a rant that targets everyone and no one, as I don’t really believe there is anyone who doesn’t have a single passion, no matter how secret. What I am attempting to do however, is try and show people that it is unfair to intentionally discredit the importance of something for someone, when it is not your thing to discredit. I am by no means a saint, and have absolutely taken the mickey, laughed at and discredited even very good friends of mines’ hobbies. I am also not saying that we should stop making light hearted jokes of things, I simply want us, the world, to be aware that whilst that thing may give you nothing, to somebody else, it is everything.

Perhaps the solution to combatting my annoyance lies with me as the individual and I should probably not care what others have to say about the things I love. However, I just end up where I started - in a cycle of existential dread pondering the very meaning of it all. My advice for people like me is 1. Recognise ‘caring too much’ as the problem and continue to love the things you love and 2. Ignore every rockstar you’ve ever loved and learn the not so subtle art of actually giving a f*ck.