Imaginary Competitions of One

I think competition must be what motivates human beings to move forward. It drives free enterprise. It's why professional sports exist. Why American Idol is the most popular TV show in America. And why, in this economy, a job in hand, even if it isn't perfect, is worth three in the ridiculously overcrowded bush. That's just a empathetic shout out to all my unemployed friends. May you crush your competition in glorious combat.

Our urge to compete is so strong, so innate, we make up competitions, even if we're the only ones participating. Case in point. I contribute to my company's blog, "The Renegade Agency Confessional" (adagencyconfessional.blogspot.com) on occasion. It's been in existence for more than a year now, has a much larger readership than this humble blog, and has, up until this post, logged more entries. But I knew, at two posts a day, everyday, Kate's and my small cyberstake in the blogosphere would eventually overtake it's larger sibling. It's a silly competition, but I check its status often. It's important to me, and I don't know why. It's just fun to compete with something that doesn't know it's in competition with me and can't do anything to save itself from inevitable defeat. With this entry both blogs have 249 entries, and Kate's next post will push us over. It's beautifully poetic that such a nice round number as 250 would be our victory post.

So in your face...faceless non-sentient abstraction.

It makes sense that competition would be so deeply rooted in our primal brains. Our very existence was made possible by the most ancient of all competitions, natural selection. Millions of years and countless generations of small hairy voles fighting it out in dank holes for limited resources assured that some of them improved, developed opposable thumbs, a proclivity for tree tops and tools, and eventually became use. We're just a small cog in planetary competition machine that continues to sculpt and change itself through the millenias.

Granted the yang side of competition is sponsored by such lovely constructs as "war" and "jealousy" and "screw you, I'm gettin' mine!" But every positive has its dark underbelly. I do believe though that as humanity continues to evolve emotionally and fear and ignorance are stripped away, this darkness will slowly fade. Competition confers plenty of other benefits, and can drive us to be the best possible people we can be.

And has brought us to number 249. Kate, would you do the honors...