The title above is what was written on my digital tickets for the event. The venue was the elegantly named M&T Bank Stadium. I could write a whole post about what I think about corporate naming of public venues. I was blown away to learn recently that Times Square in NYC has been named Longacre Square but then the New York Times built their headquarters building there which they cleverly named “Times Building” and very badly needed an address to match, so Longacre was changed to Times and they counted their building as address #1. Very humble indeed.

This post is about American football. I’ve been to 3 games to date. I went to a pre-season New England Patriots game 16 years ago, I went to a Baltimore Ravens game 5 years ago and last night I went to a playoffs game, which I believe is post season? To be honest. I’m not a sports person. It amazes me that capable people watch other capable people play games for entertainment. I try to make an exception for rare events, and for seeing sports in person, because spectating is sort of a sport in itself and if you’re like the gentleman in front of me last night who spent most time trying to get back to his seat from stadium security because when he was at his seat he had to scream “Pittsburgh fucking sucks! Steelers are losers! You’re a fucking looooooser!” to a quiet gentleman wearing a winter cap with the opposing teams logo registered all over its surface, you take spectating not only seriously as a sport, but also as an art form.

So I’ve been to these three games. This one I was on time for, in fact we were multiple hours early. I purchased ridiculously close seats to the field, third row. I say close and not good, because I’m not sure what type of person could even describe what “good” means in this sort of environment. The people around me did not sit. The entire section of seats did not sit, for 5 hours, we stood, overlapping in proximity, strangers drunkenly and incidentally huddled for warmth, with only the 30 degree air and the occasional beer flying from a mittened hand, splattering against all who are unsuspecting.

This morning when I woke up, I told my partner that football was a spectacle, that it would be the only way to describe what I had seen. My partner called it pageantry. Technically, it is probably an “extravaganza” which would be a hybrid of both words meaning an elaborate visual display or ceremony. Except it isn’t only visual. It is a bombardment of many senses, eyes, ears, touch, taste, dignity, safety, etc. To be honest, the food was the only dull element to the evening. Beer, hot dogs, crab cakes (Maryland), chicken fingers, Dippin Dots, it’s the same basic food as any event.

The event is fuel for plebians. The common man. The target audience of this event, was definitely the lowest common denominator of humankind. My partner disagreed thinking maybe its aim was for another type of mammal. I think dogs would hate the crowds and certainly the fireworks, but if we’re talking about a chimpanzee or maybe a crow (go Ravens!) she might be on point.

The event is saturated with corporate sponsorship, advertisements of all sorts and propaganda. Moments for the military, firefighters, police, security guards. Chants based around Under Armour clothing and Ford F150 trucks, alcohol, American and Maryland flags, if there are proponents trying to mold minds, they were present and the minds were fully in the molds already. People were into it. People screaming fuck Pittsburgh. I’ve lived in Baltimore for over a decade and Pittsburgh is a lovely four hour drive with beautiful scenery and delicious perogies. Their football team, doing the same exact work that ours was, except these people had traveled all the way to visit ours, spend their tourist bucks, to have people scream “fuck you loser!” directly into their face and the game hadn’t even begun. It’s not that it’s upsetting to me I love a good public outburst, just the people doing it seemed more respectable than me, and delivered it for far less cause than what I would reserve my own outrage for.

The cheerleaders, the announcer, the enormous LED screens in all directions. Digital rings of fire occasionally wrapping the entire stadium in wrap around screens. The digital crows flying through animated cubes of debris, what is it? Why is it so enormous. The theme of intimidation. A hundred people with cameras running, sitting, leaning, crouching, in every direction. The brief interruptions of royalty heavy samples of familiar music used to fuel chante. The noise meter. Fireworks. The “Celebrity Band” for half time (All Time Low if you know them) playing from what I can, mostly covers of bigger celebrity bands. Two Chains (celebrity rapper) was there and spoke to the giant Orwellian screen, not sure if he could be heard on television in person there was only music. The Marching Ravens band, again, drowned out over other music and people scream “fuck the Steelers!”. A “realty tv star” from the tv show The Bachelor and one from the competing reality tv show “Love is Blind” both introduced to the deafness of the arena. A woman came out of the smoke of an evil looking Ravens tunnel, the same one the athletes emerged from, playing a violin over heavy metal. (My favorite part of the evening). Later a mysterious celebrity from the same tunnel, maybe a former Raven player, maybe a celebrity? Maybe Nelly himself since he emerged to the song “Hot in Herre”. I have no idea, regular announcements or music didn’t allow his sound in. Maybe for the home viewer.

The lights constantly dimmed, went, out, flashed. The music and announcements were non stop. Very little seemed synchronized to the action on the field. Often I was being distracted with laser lights and music only to look up to find I had missed half of the play. The giant screens which show the action up close of your angle or distance is bad, even they seemed to miss the tracking of the game over the other show elements. More than once I noticed the scoreboard was not even accurate or current only to be corrected minutes after the error was spotted. It’s just so much it’s impossible to track. If this was a dish, prepared by a master chef, at the request of the NFL lords, it would certainly be a beer battered and fried pizza, covered in hot dogs, cake, and ice cream. Being Maryland, it would have been Smith Island cake.

This over abundance of everything, truly, is overwhelming to anyone who would stop to analyze the situation. People often speak of Caeser and the Gladiators of the Colosseum when they speak of American sports. Often talking of the bread and circus and the pleasing of the crowds to keep Americans blind to politics. This was that and a million other basic tricks of simple pleasure and mind control. So obviously presented that people don’t just embrace, but crave it. I would call it perfected but it was all so stupid. Fuel for plebians.

We had a great time.

Go Ravens!

(Editor’s note: the violinist was Lindsey Sterling https://youtu.be/aHjpOzsQ9YI?si=3f3Thtif1P0BhyjG, the gentleman who came out to “Hot in Heree” was none other than Ray Lewis)

My partner picked up this thought process where she reassures herself she is both confident and competent. These two words are often phrased together in textbooks, where the multiple authors are trying to reassure the student that the book is quality enough to deliver those two metrics. I don’t know if she had any greater exposure to thoughts on this pairing or it’s a cliche she has just chosen to embrace.

It’s seemingly simple though. If you can hold both traits in your day to day, what could go wrong? Your competence informs your answer and the confidence allows you to press it against anyone with a competing answer that has less confidence. Or maybe you’re light on confidence so you’re more open to the competence of your rival. Either way, one guides the other.

So which one is more important? Which do you start with? I say confidence. Always.

Competent people without confidence often do not share their knowledge. Especially when risk is involved. If a ship were sinking, and the only person with knowledge on how to keep it floating was not confident, they would allow people to scramble and try all other solutions before opening their mouths and mentioning that they know how a repair could be made. Why would they do this? Because if their solution doesn’t pan out, they wouldn’t want to be blamed for being wrong. Seems insane because lives are at stake, but that’s exactly why they would do nothing. The risk is too high.

If you’re doubting this, you likely have not operated in a high risk environment. These behaviors occur at all levels of risk to be honest. They become more apparent with decision makers whose choices lead to loss of money or life, or status. Often at those levels, no decisions are made. Confidence, even here can make up for the vacuum of competence, even to the point where incompetence thrives.

Confidence allows you to demand that others provide the competence. What is the pertinent information? Bring it to me, so that we can evaluate it together, and make decisions by committee. Group decisions appear to have no ownership, even though they belong to the chosen leader. A good leader, will use the least confident people in the committee as scapegoats when the results turn horrific.

Confidence allows those leaders to skate from business to business, leading teams to make incompetent decisions, and to not take any personal responsibility or acknowledgement that they are an agent of organizational destruction. These people do much better financially and enjoy much higher status in life than those with competence.

So what about confidence and competence? If you have both traits, where do you land? You’re confident enough to offer your own ideas and competent enough to be open to other people’s solutions whose ideas might be better. You open yourself up to thoughtful dialogue and communication and you seek the best options and push to implement them quickly.

How do these people fair in the world? With confident but incompetent leaders above and competent but unconfident contributors by their  side or below? They push in both directions for what seems to be the best decision but they’re pushed back against from both sides. Good leaders know that these people are blockers of cheap progress, as they waste time and resources making meaningful yet costly decisions and they upset the doers of work with their persistent burden of process change.

With confidence and competence you can be successful in this organizational vice, only until you find that decision that becomes a costly mistake. 93% success, 7% catastrophic incident. Likely your competence will allow you to recognize the mistake as your own, and your confidence will allow you to be honest about it. You’ll earn yourself a walk out the door and a reputation for being the person who blew it.

Or will you? Is that the irrational fear that drives business people to avoid calling the shots? Or is it rational? I like to think of myself as a confident and competent person, and the people I work for who avoid decisions all have significantly more and more expensive education than I possess. Do Ivy League schools have this data? Have they crunched the numbers and determined that being a decision maker is a fools errand? To always plan a scapegoat and an out to protect your reputation? What is more efficient? Making or skirting responsibility? Which is a better driver of growth? Risk vs reward? Am I too old to go back to college? Would they let me in?

Be competent. Be confident. It sounds reassuring until it doesn’t. I don’t know how else to attempt to be. Let’s hope the battles are worth it.

The pilot mumbles.

Act two, sing-songs rules and jokes.

Bing! Clear for takeoff.

This is where I’m calling out God specifically. How bout it pal? Did you use up all your ideas, or is the vault full of unreleased hits just waiting to be unleashed into the vastness of existence?

Did you think to even make yourself into a god? It’d be wild if the creator of all things hadn’t even remembered to gift themselves the power to create or rule over the things you’ve created and rule over. You’d just be like the hole inside a volcano. Built an island full of inhabitants but don’t even get to claim the stone walls or magma below. Just the unthinking orifice.

I’ve read some books attributed to you. Orifice work for sure. Don’t worry, I’ve never believed in the divine guidance of those works. Divine inspiration, sure, guidance? Nah.

It’s funny how many people could take offense to even thinking about these things. I know atheists that would rather go to church and cringe through a sermon than to listen to my out-loud thoughts on wondering how people believe in something so obviously problematic.

Not that you don’t exist. It’s just I have questions about some assumptions my fellow mammals have created. Unlike the initial question I raised. There are significantly more creation stories than the ones breathed into by my ancestors. The problem with humans, is we give greater value to old ideas than new ones. It’s why we prefer the first of most products. Harvard, Coca-Cola, Monotheistic books loaded with contradictions.

I’d prefer new tails of a religion. Not in like the go see it at the cinema kind of way but in a, here folks, worship this tale of tales. It will make you a better person. You’d be a better person to write a book than read a book. Both types of people can be like the volcanic orifice but one spews a new platform to stand on and the other takes ideas with them into the abyss.

So here’s what I want. If there was a chance, that there are more uncreated wonders than created wonders, I’d like to see something positively shocking for once in my life. Doesn’t have to be now but you know, at one point. I feel everyone typically gets to see just enough horrors to know that the world is a shockingly dangerous and indifferent place but so rarely are we shocked by something beneficial.

Maybe it’s just we take everything for granted. All the amazing things we already have. Maybe our God is only a god of entropy and the only options are really fast decay or moderately slow decay and that’s really all they check for in prayers. If people want faster or slower entropy.

People probably aren’t even thinking about that possibility.

If true, it would make a load of difference to not only pray for slower entropy but to pray correctly. In the unique way that this god requires to receive and respond.

Burnt offerings always were the best prayers. Burn the goat so that the gods can devour the smoke and the rest of us get mutton. Vegan options available in 2024.

Anyways, I think that’s it. We need to know. Someone should write a book.

At some point.