There’s a game I like to play whenever I watch rugby.
A tackle that would chop me in half; a shoulder barge that would not merely end my life but cause my spine to burst out of my body and land eight feet away, coiled and fully intact, like a gore-smeared length of bony rope.
I don’t know much about rugby but I watch the Six Nations, and the World Cup, which means I will be watching with interest as Ireland square off with New Zealand in the quarter-final this weekend.
It is inarguable that a large part, perhaps the majority, of my interest is due to the fact that Ireland is doing so well.
I am the definition of a fair-weather fan, and the weather has never been fairer.
There is likely nothing I do so often that I understand so little. My lack of knowledge is profound and all-encompassing.
Some aspects of the game I watch with the guarded puzzlement of a visiting British royal invited to watch an esoteric tribal ritual.
I shout garbled encouragements to men whose movements I can neither predict nor understand. Far from reducing this experience, it enhances it in many ways.
My mind, free of such trifles like “who that person is” or “what he’s doing, exactly”, takes in each game more like a vibe, a crashing tumult of large men banging into each other without discernible motivation, facing their opponents in rows and lifting each other for reasons unknown.
Watching rugby, I experience what Alexander Pope called “the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”, and
…. to be continued
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