Monday, December 28, 2020

I Saw This Last Night On Local News

They ran it twice. I'm surprised they haven't devoted a secondary digital channel to running it over and over and over again.  

J.J. Watt is a beloved figure in Houston. He's done a great deal for the community, and not just on the football field.

I don't think it matters so much the content of his rant, or the context.  It's the honesty of it.  The purity of expression.  And that the subject is others:  not him, not his career (which will end soon, with no hope of playing on a team that went to the Super Bowl, or ever even made it far in the playoffs), not his hopes and dreams.  His focus is on the fans, the people they play the game for, the people who make it possible for them to play the game and be so well compensated for doing so.  And yeah, football is a rough and violent and physically damaging game, and that's not set aside because this is a football player talking about his football team.

But it's something other than that, too.  Not something timeless; but something honest and plainly said.  We need a little of that, too; every once in a while.

2 comments:

  1. J.J.Watt is being sincere, which is almost transgressive in our current society. We are so steeped in irony, the hot take, memes, and everything given with a posture that sincerity stands out. To call someone sincere is typically not a complement, it is a polite form of calling them naive. The naive, the gullible, the stupid are sincere. We have been led the last four years by one of the least sincere presidents ever (which a real challenge given Nixon). It's a value that it would be good to see more of, along with accountability (which J.J. Watt also displays).

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