Mid-winter musings
I’m too sun-deprived to come up with the usual long, coherent (they usually are, aren’t they?) blogpost essay, so here are some random musings along the trail. Hopefully, this’ll help clear my brain for the Spring Training stories that are starting to arrive from Florida.
1. Gabe updates: in case you missed the last newsletter, our boy Gabe Kapler made Major League Baseball’s Play of the Year for 2008, according to a poll of MLB.com’s readers. Go to this link at MLB.com (This Year in Baseball, 2008), and click "Play":
Unfortunately for us, he was signed by the Devil Rays in the off-season, so when he returns to Fenway, it’ll be as an opponent. That means there’s a chance he’ll make another catch like his award-winner at Fenway, maybe to rob David Ortiz of a home-run. Ironically, the Rays are our Opening Day opponents, but Gabe was too booked that weekend to stop by for any Joy of Sox fundraiser we might whip up in his honor.
2. The Super Bowl – yes, there are other sports besides baseball.
This year’s football finale was intriguing for several reasons. One, our Patriots didn’t make the playoffs, despite a better regular season record than one of the finalists (but that’s another story), so it was noticeably harder to care about the game. That put at least this one local viewer into a different frame of mind, hoping for a well-played game without caring who actually won. And in fact it was a very exciting game, with a rousing final quarter that ranked with the best of ‘em. The underdogs almost pulled it out at the last second, and I found that you don’t have to be a partisan to appreciate excellence in sports.
Oddly enough, that’s one of the key points in “Joy” – emotions like appreciation and joy and enthusiasm are most contagious to the players, and are more helpful (in a distant intentionality sense) than anger at the opponent. So for fans to have the most impact, they shouldn’t be attached to any particular outcome. This is a Buddhist approach to cheering, and I’m not sure many Sox fans are up for such a high-minded approach to cheering. But at least that one time it was fun!
3. The science of Joy - It was gratifying to receive my copy of the Winter 2009 issue of the scientific journal called Subtle Energy and Energy Medicine, because it included the write-up of our lab demo done with the HeartMath Institute last Spring. That test showed that emotions can be spread by invisible forces, with heartfelt appreciation being the most powerful emotion. See the May 2008 blog entry for a summary about the HeartMath system, or click on the small lab photo on the homepage for a link.
A write-up of the other science fair project – random number generators at the ballpark – is still being shopped around to find its proper home in the scientific literature. I’ll let you know when it gets the “thumbs up”.
4. Spring is here - we may still have 6 inches of snow outside, but the sap has started to flow in our maple tree, so the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible!
1. Gabe updates: in case you missed the last newsletter, our boy Gabe Kapler made Major League Baseball’s Play of the Year for 2008, according to a poll of MLB.com’s readers. Go to this link at MLB.com (This Year in Baseball, 2008), and click "Play":
Unfortunately for us, he was signed by the Devil Rays in the off-season, so when he returns to Fenway, it’ll be as an opponent. That means there’s a chance he’ll make another catch like his award-winner at Fenway, maybe to rob David Ortiz of a home-run. Ironically, the Rays are our Opening Day opponents, but Gabe was too booked that weekend to stop by for any Joy of Sox fundraiser we might whip up in his honor.
2. The Super Bowl – yes, there are other sports besides baseball.
This year’s football finale was intriguing for several reasons. One, our Patriots didn’t make the playoffs, despite a better regular season record than one of the finalists (but that’s another story), so it was noticeably harder to care about the game. That put at least this one local viewer into a different frame of mind, hoping for a well-played game without caring who actually won. And in fact it was a very exciting game, with a rousing final quarter that ranked with the best of ‘em. The underdogs almost pulled it out at the last second, and I found that you don’t have to be a partisan to appreciate excellence in sports. Oddly enough, that’s one of the key points in “Joy” – emotions like appreciation and joy and enthusiasm are most contagious to the players, and are more helpful (in a distant intentionality sense) than anger at the opponent. So for fans to have the most impact, they shouldn’t be attached to any particular outcome. This is a Buddhist approach to cheering, and I’m not sure many Sox fans are up for such a high-minded approach to cheering. But at least that one time it was fun!
3. The science of Joy - It was gratifying to receive my copy of the Winter 2009 issue of the scientific journal called Subtle Energy and Energy Medicine, because it included the write-up of our lab demo done with the HeartMath Institute last Spring. That test showed that emotions can be spread by invisible forces, with heartfelt appreciation being the most powerful emotion. See the May 2008 blog entry for a summary about the HeartMath system, or click on the small lab photo on the homepage for a link.
A write-up of the other science fair project – random number generators at the ballpark – is still being shopped around to find its proper home in the scientific literature. I’ll let you know when it gets the “thumbs up”.
4. Spring is here - we may still have 6 inches of snow outside, but the sap has started to flow in our maple tree, so the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible!
posted by Rick Leskowitz,MD at 9:33 AM
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