Ram Das: "Unconditional Love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It's not 'I love you' for this or that reason...It's love for no reason, love without an object."To play one’s position is to know the bounds to which one is expected to act on the field. It is, in a very direct way, a reflection of the expectations of modernity. The Enlightenment (late 17th and 18th century) could be thought of as the foundational moment of modernity, and the moment in which the world, in the words of Immanuel Kant, “dared to think for itself.” How does positionality relate to thinking for one’s self? Well, in modernity, it became the structured way in which one thought for himself. Pre-modernity didn’t distinguish between church and state, religion and secular. Traditionally, authoritarian kings exploited religious superstitions in government to justify divine sovereign rule and oppress the masses. In modernity we begin to see the breaking of these chains through the clear distinctions of subjective vs. objective, rational vs. irrational, scientific vs. non-scientific, public vs. private, and cognitive vs. emotive. In this sense modernity was necessary for progress towards a greater freedom. But what can happen when players on the field become overly restricted by the boundaries of their position? What happens when players that are learning the game take too seriously the limits that have been described to them? They miss the point of it all. They miss the chance to make plays. Professional players know a deeper truth, that yes, first, positions are required to be defined, but they are in fact, fluid and dependent on each other. There is an undercurrent, running beneath the binary distinctions. It is not religion, religion’s position is subjective, irrational, non-scientific, private, and emotive. It is not science, science’s position is objective, rational, scientific, public, and cognitive. But it is the amorphous core which gives rise to both. They are both, in their best sense, the response to being grabbed by something unconditional. Science is not purely objective inquiry. It is not heartless, methodological, rational, disinterested calculation. Any great scientist will tell you, it begins like artistic inquiry in which the scientist becomes decentered, overcome with direction that is outside the bounds of logic. The scientist comprehends through understanding and that understanding provides meaning but he is driven by something in which he doesn’t understand, something that brings meaning into the world, but itself lacks meaning. It is the indescribable force that I unsuccessfully attempt to describe to ballplayers which comes over me the minute a ball is popped up in the field, and I must sprint with my entire being towards it with reckless abandon. In that moment, something seizes me, something lays claim to me, it is not my idea, it inbreaks upon me, it interrupts my life in a disturbing way, it puts me on the accusative, I am the receiver, I affirm it without compromise, I commit myself to it without reserve or care for my own wellbeing. It is the unconditional. It is what so many have tried to conquer through religion or discredit through science, but it will remain. For it brings life. It is an event which captivates in a way we cannot conceptualize. Like art, or music, it does not fall into rational or irrational, subjective or objective. It either moves you or it doesn’t.
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AuthorI will be posting more baseball meditations here over time. Archives
December 2024
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