Rage

Basketball is a physical game, a contact sport even. An icon once warned if you don t want to get hurt, play chess, only to cut Wesley So deep he left his unfeeling country for another. The danger of hefty men of basketball agility was brought to fore last week. The collegiate basketball community was stunned seeing a Lyceum player lying on the floor, seemingly lifeless. JM Bravo blacked out after a head on collision in a rebound battle with Renzo Abiera of Arellano University. All in the name of ball possession to secure winning position.

Thankfully, the Pirates guard is declared out of danger after he unwittingly endangered himself. No one is to blame. In truth, no one smells danger in the heat of the moment. In that split-second eternity, athletes leave nothing to chance, all in the name of victory.

Even the artistry of Carlos Yulo defies gravity, injury and even death. Gymnastics is a sensory delight, but the fright in flight is invisible. Gymnasts do not hesitate, they execute in haste. The fearless Manny Pacquiao faced and aced blurs of lethal fist until Juan Manuel Marquez sedated him for two minutes of eternal humiliation. And today the Mexican prides his career with that knockout of one of world boxing greats.

 Winning is everything. The fire in the eyes of competitors does not burn them, it focuses them to just one direction, without reference to the once famous boy band who lost its member to a hotel balcony fall. Whether he jumped to his death remains a mystery. On purpose or dosed, leave it to authorities. Whether to tell the world, leave it to his family. But the mess of alcohol and drugs in his hotel room indicates Liam was in pain and suffering.

The depth of human feelings is unfathomable. It drowns even the most resilient. Just as rage blinds even the meekest of lambs and the calmest of humans. Exactly why death penalty does not deter crime. Fear of consequence is lost at the height of anger. Obfuscation. Or in fits of passion. Betrayal.

Thankfully though, that is the exception rather than the rule. Majority still fear to cross the line. Law and order. But animals in the wild behave better than humans who civilized the world. Not smarter either, the same majority does not fear the future of their nation as they go to the polls. Democracy, where election and entertainment are interchanged, none of which feeds the hungry or solves poverty.

In sports and in life, one great exception is the retiring Rafael Nadal, the raging bull who never bullied anyone on and off court. And he just got rewarded for never breaking a racket, with another racket, of solid gold worth a little more than a quarter of a million dollars. Almost always, self-restraint is the better part of discretion, unless it involves public interest where indifference is the worst part of indiscretion.