Kerri Walsh Gives Me Warm Fuzzies

thesportsbank.net

Kerri Walsh of the US Women's Beach Volleyball gives me warm fuzzies. She is all smiles and handshakes. I don't know her from Adam but I can tell that she's got the right attitude about life. I'm not a behaviorist but I can tell just by looking at Walsh, be it in interviews, photos, even when she's playing, that she's found (or made) her niche in the universe. And she's thrilled about it. You can see it in her smile. A smile is not just a complex system of varying muscle contractions around the mouth; it is also in the eyes - an unmistakable, unshakable glint that works with other facial muscles to denote someone who is truly at ease with him/herself. I believe that a smile can go a long way; that just a sincere grin, direct eye contact and quick head nod to a passerby can resonate positive energy.

Walsh kicks this method of shared resonance up notch, as can be witnessed at the end of each of her Volleyball matches in London. Walsh and teammate Misty May go through the obligatory sportsmanship routine of 'good game, good game' with opponents, reaching under the net to high-five, handshake. And then they continue on to shake hands with the officials, 'Thank you, Thank you'. While the losers sulk away and May returns to the sand and basks in the glory of attention and praises of the stands and cameras what's Walsh doing? She is darting around, corner to corner to corner to corner, thanking the ball handlers. Many times catching them off guard. They assume that since the game is over their business is done. But Walsh is not done. She recognizes their efforts and makes the effort, even after a physically demanding performance on the court, to sprint after these low-level volunteers to express her gratitude. That is positive resonance in action. And even in my living room on the other side of the pond I feel her televised vibe, and I can only hope that the millions of other viewers can feel those warm fuzzies too. Dig it.

Time is Precious

I recently canceled my Facebook and Tumblr accounts. Browsing both had lost its dazzle long ago and had turned into an activity bordering compulsive. I would not spend hours upon hours on Facebook but I did find myself logging in frequently for short bursts of times. And because I was extremely selective about who I friended my list was under 100 people; Maybe 10 of those people updated regularly, 5 of which updated the same type of crap. As for Tumblr: They saw a deluge of activity from me for about 4 weeks. It was fun to browse pictures and lose time searching tags and creating a personal tumblr page that I thought defined me through a selection of redirected pictures. Over time I again recognized that I lacked self-control for moderate browsing times and pursuing a meaningless and shallow endeavor.

Time is precious. I value my use of it. Facebook and Tumblr (Hereafter referred to as ‘they’) were not effective uses of my time. And upon retrospect deleting them was a smart move because my thoughts have naturally drifted back to thinking about content for this blog. They were damaging to my intellectual capacity because it was too easy to blurt out in status updates stuff that I like, think is cool, worthwhile, post links, youtubes. Etc. etc. The problem is that the content of the status update was severed after the initial statement was posted. Sometimes there was a little banter back and forth between friends, but these ideas and opinions never really developed because I would quickly move on to something else.

Example: I was listening to Yawning Man two or so weeks after deleting facebook. I love Yawning Man, and listening to it that day affirmed this opinion. Had I still been on Facebook I would have logged in and posted: “YAWNING MAN IS GREAT!” And then left it at that. But as I was sitting there two or so weeks after deleting Facebook and listening to the magnificence that is Yawning Man I realized that I did myself a favor for deleting them because now I shall take the time to develop my thoughts, ideas, and opinions… and share them here on Doctor Jones where brevity may not always been a course of action. And this is the perfect place to hone in on my resolve to improve my compositional and writing skills. Plus, I just graduated (why I've been so inactive here) so I’m gonna have more time on my hands.

Coming soon: A thorough post about why Yawning Man is great