Step onto the Court of Wisdom

YOU TOO CAN BE A PHILOSOPHER

Are you an athlete? Are you a coach? Do you think there’s more to life than on-court skills, X’s and O’s or athleticism? Do you think your brain’s grey matter actually does matter? Do you ask a lot of questions, just as I am right now? If you said “yes” at least once just now, you’ve come to the right place!

WELCOME TO THE COURT OF WISDOM

Take a deep breath and dive with me into the depths of philosophy of sport. But what exactly is philosophy? The Greek origin of the word translates into “love of wisdom”. And that makes us – philosophers – lovers of wisdom. Now, Dear Reader, notice the distinction between the words “knowledge” and “wisdom”. Knowledge is only one of a few components of wisdom – and therefore (at least in my opinion) must be inferior to it. Wisdom trumps knowledge, because of its two additional parts: experience and good judgment.

But how does all of that relate to sports? How do we go from the profundity of the great philosophers to the seeming superficiality and trivialism of chasing after a silly ball? After all, athletes might look quite foolish in the eyes of an alien watching us through a big telescope: we go to the gym to lift heavy things and put them back down, we go to the track to run around in circles, we willingly step into the ring to get punched by a person we’ve never met before. We train our bodies like we’re getting ready to attempt the Twelve Herculean Labors, where in fact our game, race or other performance this weekend will have no great meaning in the grand scheme of things. And yet we do it, and we do it passionately. So why is that? Why do we sweat our asses off? Why do we wake up first thing in the morning to hit the gym? Why do we keep grinding on the court even when our bodies are telling us to stop? Why do we risk our long-term health with frequent sport-related injuries? Why do we care so much about something so seemingly meaningless? What if it’s not meaningless? What if we possess the power to give sports meaning? What if we make it mean something just by believing it does? And if that’s true, then how do we actually do it?

If you, Dear Reader, took even a second to try to answer any of the questions above, I really appreciate you – this is exactly what I am here to do. I want to try to make you think of things that we sometimes take for granted. I assume you’ve been playing or coaching your sport for years now. After such a long time we sometimes forget about our “why”. Sometimes it all becomes a routine. And even though the love and the passion for our sport might still be there, I believe it’s worth to go back to your “why” every now and then. If we’re truly passionate about what we do, we are going to ask many “whys” and perhaps even more “hows” . All of these questions should lead you to a better understanding of what you do, no matter what that is in your life.

Which brings me back to the previously mentioned definition of wisdom and specifically to its three parts: knowledge, experience and good judgement.

KNOWLEDGE

Let’s start with knowledge. As you probably assumed, knowledge basically means all the information we have gathered, through any means – education, our experiences, etc. Our knowledge contains all the facts we have gathered in our lifetimes. Allow me to emphasize the word “facts” here – not opinions, not thoughts, not beliefs, but facts. Now, let’s say that my hypothetical friend – let’s call him Johnny – told me that he believes that the Earth is flat. Do I know – in other words, do I have the knowledge – that the Earth is, in fact, flat? No, I certainly do not. Do I have the knowledge that Johnny thinks that the Earth is flat? I actually don’t, either. Because what if Johnny was just trying to prank me? What if he only said that as a joke and he actually doesn’t believe that to be true? So, in this scenario, what do I actually know? The only thing I have the actual knowledge of is that Johnny SAID that the Earth is flat. That’s a fact. Whether he was lying, joking or whether he actually believed what he was saying, the only thing I KNOW for a fact is that he said it. This is the moment where I could get much deeper into all of that and start questioning our own reality like Rene Descartes, after which we could say that I don’t actually know that Johnny said what he said, because he may not exist and we all might be a part of a simulation inside of a computer, but let’s try not to get all the way down into Inception-like levels of depth here and simply move onto the next part instead.

EXPERIENCE

Experience – this one should be pretty simple, hopefully. Everything you have ever encountered through any of your senses – that’s your experience. Have you listened to the new Gorillaz album? Congratulations, that’s now part of your experience. Did you walk past the most beautiful girl in your life yesterday? Well, she’s part of it now, too. Have you had one too many drinks at your last party? As much as it might have sucked the next morning, don’t feel too bad, because you just became a more experienced person. We all have our good and bad experiences. Having gone through life with only one kind of them is probably impossible. In fact, some of them are quite ordinary and neutral, too. But no matter their quality, their whole collection is what matters. It matters, because combining it with our knowledge, we can start creating the third component of wisdom – good judgment. 

GOOD JUDGEMENT

I find it surprisingly amusing how the dictionary definition of wisdom, when it describes the third component of it, uses the phrasing “good judgment”. Now, you might think “well, we wouldn’t want to have poor judgment if we were to use our wisdom, would we?”, and you would be right, but I’m thinking about something slightly different. The difference between “good” and “poor” judgment is not the only one. There is also the difference between “good” and “evil” judgment. My Mom once told me that “wisdom is knowledge put to good use”. I’ve thought about that plenty of times. Now, let’s imagine you found a magic lamp. You rubbed it gently, and a djinn (with a voice of Robin Williams, hopefully) came out and told you that you can have one wish. Let’s say that you asked for immortality and your wish has been granted. You’ve lived for centuries now, dedicating your life to education. You’ve read all the books ever written, you’ve learned all the languages and traveled the world countless times. You now possess the amount of knowledge and experience no human has ever collected. But if, for some reason, you decide to use all of that knowledge and experience for evil you would never be considered wise. If you use that knowledge and experience for any selfish reasons, if you just want power, money, fame, if you’re causing harm, you are not wise. Good judgment is crucial. Of course, all three components of wisdom are interconnected; they can’t exist without the others – there’s no knowledge without experience, there’s no good judgment without knowledge. All three of these are the necessary tools used by us – philosophers. And as lovers of wisdom, we take care of each of our tools equally.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Alright, I admit, that might have seemed like a bunch of nonsense dressed in pretty words. So let’s go through all of that again, this time applying the three components of wisdom to our reality, specifically our sport reality. First of all, we need knowledge about our sport – the “know-how”. You have your coach explaining you the rules of the game, the techniques of your on-court skills. You do your own research, watch film of the great athletes, learn their tricks. You learn about nutrition, taking care of your body, physical preparation. You ask questions about how to get better at even the smallest part of your game. You want to collect all the information you can.

Then we have our experience. We’ve collected all this information and we try to implement it into our game. We take the tricks of the trade of the great athletes and try them out on the court. We try various exercises recommended by great trainers. We take a crack at many new things and techniques every season. But then, sometimes we realize that this one specific exercise is not working so well for us. We go back to the trainer, make sure that our form is correct. But still, something is off. Is that bad? Did we do something wrong? What about that time when we tried to dissect the form of a great athlete and add it to our game? Let’s take a look at Stephen Curry – the greatest shooter in basketball history. Other NBA players when they talk about his shooting say that his technique is really unique, it’s not the textbook form. One of his peers, Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards, said on the “Old Man and the Three” podcast that “Steph doesn’t have the prettiest shot, but it works for him”. And that’s the key here when we talk about experience. Curry might have been questioned by his coaches about these odd shooting mechanics. He might’ve been asked to change it to the so-called “proper” form. And I’m sure he tried it. But every person is different. Every single thing works differently for each of us. We have to experience many things and use that experience to decide what works best for us.

Finally, good judgement is tricky when it comes to sport. Because theoretically, you COULD be a successful athlete even if you pursue this path ONLY for the money or fame. But show me a legend of ANY sport who did not actually LOVE his sport. Show me a sport star who was not obsessed with maximizing his potential, his possibilities, winning everything there was to win. Show me a star who did not want to eliminate any weakness he or she might have had. Show me a world-class athlete who did not admire the greats from days past and who did not want to join that elite himself or herself. Money is a necessary part of our journey, it’s hard to get by without it, obviously. Being recognized on the street for your recent performance on the court surely feels nice, but it never satisfies a true competitor. We stay hungry, because we know that we’ll get a chance to compete again next weekend. We work hard and risk injuries because we love the game. We love the process. Destination is important, but we care more about the journey. Successfully completing a challenge and achieving the desired result feels fantastic, but we value the process of facing that challenge more. Although we love to win, we know that once we do, the work doesn’t stop. Your opponent is going to come back stronger next time; you have to stay ready. Although we hate losing, it’s an opportunity for growth – we need to look back at our mistakes and learn from them. Once we realize all of that, once we fall in love with The Process, we will be a lot closer to having good judgement.

WHAT’S NEXT?

If you’re still reading all of this, Dear Reader, thank you for being here. I’m very excited about this blog, which will help me express myself and hopefully bring something valuable into your life along the way. I tend to overthink about pretty much everything in my life, especially sports. I relive my victories, trying to squeeze out every drop of dopamine from my favorite on-court memories just as much as I lose sleep blaming myself for all of my team’s losses. I constantly ask myself (and others): “what can I do more?”, “what can I do better?”, “what should I change or add to my game?”, “how can I help my teammates or players get better?”. I will share my thoughts on a variety of sport-related topics, I will interview professional players, coaches and others to find more meaning and learn as much as I can. I am very excited to hear any potential topics you would like me to write about, Dear Reader, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment or message me.

Let’s step onto the Court of Wisdom together.