Is Life A Zero Sum Game? Or "Cuz when it's over it's all over And what you gained you throw away"*

1. You know you're getting old when you become concerned about your urination schedule.

2. I've been contemplating Bono's lyric from Hawkmoon 269 when he says 'he needs (your) love' "Like a boxer needs pain." (Ok, I looked it up and he seems to say like a preacher needs pain, but we're going stick with what I've been contemplating.) To me, the lyric represents this beautiful truism in life. Our essence requires something, and that requirement makes us who we are. All good boxers go back to something in their past that hurt them, that caused them pain. And that pain makes them want to inflict pain on their opponents. Young boxers "go soft" when that pain disappears, when the money has healed most of the pain. (Old boxers just continue to fight after their physical skills have deteriorated.) It is like successful athletes who need competition to define their self-worth after retirement. Most (successful) people have something that defines them. Something that they need to make them who they are. To make them successful. The thing is finding that "need" and never letting go of it. The most successful people openly and honestly recognize their need and are never ashamed of it. Moderately successful people just don't think about it.

3. When I was in high school, some local newspaper did a profile of me. I was a decent shot-putter. I told the reporter that I picked out one of my competitors, found a reason to hate him, let that hate build up into a rage, and used the rage to throw the shot-put as far as I could. It was something a stupid kid would say, and I was a stupid kid.

4. But that anger, that passion, that ability to see something that isn't right and comment on it with confidence and pride and humbleness, that is who I am. That is my essence. It isn't anger about individuals anymore. It is anger about ideas and operations and my lack of toughness and the bullshit of the world. Bono needs (your) love like I need discontent.

5. Or is it? I also took great pride in practicing longer than all of my shot-put teammates. I would stay in the cold, and in the rain. I had to prove to them I was tougher. I might not be able to throw farther, but damn it, I would outlast them. Bono needs (your) love like I need to feel that I am tough.

6. Maybe Bono needs (your) love like I need anger concerning my lack of toughness.

7. No. That's not true. The reason I stayed out in the rain and cold was because I thought you should stay out in the rain and cold. I was angry at my teammates running inside. I was angry at their lack of toughness.

8. Bono needs (your) love like I need anger.

9. Bono needs (your) love like I need anger about things not being as good as they could be.

10. There we go. It looks bad written down, but there are a lot of successful people who have built their success around "anger about things not being as good as they could be."

*From Rosie Thomas' "Death Came And Got Me"