dd20040806 - Recess redemption

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Dodging (is) human nature

A year and a half ago, I wrote to you about a popular schoolyard sport that's in danger of being banned because of parents' (and educators) fears that their kids might feel persecuted by losing at it - or worse yet, by NOT being picked for the team.

Of course, I was talking about dodge-ball (also called "bombardment").

My argument back then was basically this: Dodge-ball is competition in its purest sense, and the sooner and more realistically kids get exposed to it, the better. Nothing prepares young people for the trials of adulthood better than competition in any form - whether it's beaning your opponent with a big red ball or besting your archrival for valedictorian. That's how we learn to sink or swim, how we learn where we fit in the pecking order, and how we develop the desire and the skill to move up in it. Things like dodge-ball are the engines of excellence!

And according to a recent item in the New York Times, this good 'ol ruthless, violent (if you ask teachers, not their charges), all- American schoolyard game isn't just for kids anymore. Spurred by a recent Hollywood film, dodge-ball leagues of grown men and women are springing up all over the country. They even have an official governing body and regional and national championship tournaments.

What's the appeal? Apparently, it's more than just another fitness craze. According to the article, people are playing because they love the competition, and yes, even the violence. That's right - the very things that have dodge-ball on the outs during recess are rearing their latent, ugly heads among grown-ups on the dodge-ball court.

There's only one problem: Kids don't look ridiculous hurling balls at each as they simultaneously writhe and contort to avoid them, but ADULTS DO! Not to mention the fact that grown men and women in their 30s and 40s are a lot more easily injured (and heal more slowly) than kids on the sandlot. That's why childhood is the time to get these things out of our systems, regardless what the do- gooders in the faculty lounge say.

So what's the moral here? Healthy competition is human, and anything we do to suppress it, discourage it, or make it "fair" is ultimately bad for us, both as individuals and as a people. Let the kids have their rambunctious horseplay and pecking-order-based games.

Apparently, they're going to have them one way or another anyway, sooner or later. According to the Times piece, a recent tournament featured one team made up entirely of players over 60 who'd all gone to the same high school...

I guess that schoolyard "bonding by bombardment" means more than they think, huh?

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Dial-a-diatribe?

Someone out there is a genius. Exploitative and twisted, but a genius nonetheless.

According to a recent CNN.com story, mental health professionals are irate over one New England entrepreneur's get-rich-quick scheme: For $1.99 a minute, he'll listen to you rant and rave about whatever you want over the telephone.

Called "Vent-line," this service - which, though ridiculous, is no less legitimate than any of the dozens of other pay-per-minute phone businesses out there - affords people the ability to cheaply blow off steam about politics, drug prices, their spouses, whatever. Nevertheless, the shrinks are ganging up and pressuring prosecutors to shut down the service.

Why is the mental health community so steamed up over this?

Probably because they're worried about losing business. After all, if New Englanders can harmlessly get things off their chests in ten minutes for less than twenty bucks, they really don't need an hour- long couch session at 300 smackers, do they?

Of course, the head docs are claiming that such venting only upsets people more, but I'll bet the 20 or so "patients" a week who ring up this young entrepreneur would disagree. And what does it matter? It's a free country, isn't it (it used to be, at any rate)? If some folks want to spend their money by yelling into the phone, who are any of us to tell them they can't?

Besides, the chuckles the rest of us get imagining them screaming into the phone at a total stranger are worth far more that what they're paying to do it.

Dodging the dogma,

William Campbell Douglass II, MD

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