=== What Do 4 Hours x 365 days x 50 Years Come To? ===

... Imagine two things:  (1) Imagine that the U.S. were destroyed by an invading force, with 298 million people enslaved and you being one of the 2 million who escaped to another country.  Watching from abroad, you saw your grandchildren marched to indoctrination camps, you saw dissidents killed, etc. etc.

And imagine that (2) you, under those circumstances, were generally known as the most cheerful, happy person on earth.

This is the case when you are referring to the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama rises at 3:30 a.m. to make room for his daily four hours of positive visualization and contemplation.  Perhaps the training of his mind has had something to do with his attitude and disposition.  

On dalailama.com this is the main essay he offers on the subject of fifty consecutive 100-loss seasons:

... I write this as someone who lost his freedom at the age of 16, then lost his country at the age of 24. Consequently, I have lived in exile for more than 50 years during which we Tibetans have dedicated ourselves to keeping the Tibetan identity alive and preserving our culture and values. On most days the news from Tibet is heartbreaking, and yet none of these challenges gives grounds for giving up. 

One of the approaches that I personally find useful is to cultivate the thought: If the situation or problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it. In other words, if there is a solution or a way out of the difficulty, you do not need to be overwhelmed by it. The appropriate action is to seek its solution. Then it is clearly more sensible to spend your energy focussing on the solution rather than worrying about the problem....

Taking a realistic view and cultivating a proper motivation can also shield you against feelings of fear and anxiety. If you develop a pure and sincere motivation, if you are motivated by a wish to help on the basis of kindness, compassion, and respect, then you can carry on any kind of work, in any field, and function more effectively with less fear or worry, not being afraid of what others think or whether you ultimately will be successful in reaching your goal. Even if you fail to achieve your goal, you can feel good about having made the effort. 

But with a bad motivation, people can praise you or you can achieve goals, but you still will not be happy.

Again, we may sometimes feel that our whole lives are unsatisfactory, we feel on the point of being overwhelmed by the difficulties that confront us. This happens to us all in varying degrees from time to time. 

When this occurs, it is vital that we make every effort to find a way of lifting our spirits. We can do this by recollecting our good fortune. We may, for example, be loved by someone; we may have certain talents; we may have received a good education; we may have our basic needs provided for - food to eat, clothes to wear, somewhere to live - we may have performed certain altruistic deeds in the past. We must take into consideration even the slightest positive aspect of our lives. For if we fail to find some way of uplifting ourselves, there is every danger of sinking further into our sense of powerlessness. This can lead us to believe that we have no capacity for doing good whatsoever. Thus we create the conditions of despair itself.

Winning the AL pennant is a bit less important than is freeing Tibet, perhaps.  But if a bridge will hold a heavy train, it will also hold a lightweight bicycle.  The Dalai Lama's life philosophy holds up under the stress of warfare against one of the most evil regimes in Earth's history; the Dalai Lama's life philsophy also holds up under lesser pressures, such as trying to bat when Alexi Ogando is pitching.

So long as Jack Zduriencik and Eric Wedge have "a pure and sincere motivation" -- to win the AL pennant as soon as possible -- then they are worthy of praise and they are worthy of SSI's loyalty.  I can only shake my head in silent admiration at the sheer ferocity of Eric Wedge's will to win.  If there were one amigo I'd want with me in a foxhole, man.

Yasser Seirawan, himself a concrete-hard competitor, went behind the Iron Curtain in 1980 to play Russian chess superstars for the first time.  

He sat down to play Viktor Korchnoi and immediately froze inside the radiation of Korchnoi's hatred.  Seirawan built an advantage with White, and Korchnoi's fury at being worse --- > wrecked Seirawan's concentration.  "I couldn't believe it.  It was like he wanted to KILL me with his chess pieces.  He's staring at his pieces, going c'mon you *(*@#$, he's attacking, how could you let it happen?"

Eric Wedge's barely-controlled murderous rage is one that I've seen before --- > mostly in the faces of superstar chess and poker players.  It's actually kind of ugly, and I actually kind of love it.

***

It was not winning the World Series that made the 1995 Mariners memorable.  I didn't have to see them win their last game, in order to enjoy their effort to win.  Neither do I have to see Zduriencik's and Wedge's team win, today, in order to enjoy their effort to win, today.

As long as Zduriencik and Wedge are driving, I'm seated in the back.  These guys know what sports are all about.

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