Let Philadelphia Endure b/w May You Live In Interesting Times
Two essays. One about how Philadelphia is being punished by god, a computer or itself. Another about being forced to regularly gamble, and the prize is a normal life
I had two essays I wrote this week. They’re not about the same thing, but they still feel sort of connected, so it felt right to release them together as sort of an A-side and B-side. Please don’t hold me to this every week. I might curse myself next week when I don’t have any ideas.
SPEAKING of curses, that sort of acts as a theme for today’s essays.
Let Philadelphia Endure
Philadelphia’s slogan is “Philadelphia Maneto.” It means “Let brotherly love endure,” hence the whole “City of Brotherly Love” thing.
But I’d prefer to look at it in a way where I pick and choose what I translate to English:
“Let Philadelphia Endure.”
Let’s even go a little further here and play with the definition of the sentence itself. Abandon the fact that Philadelphia literally means “brotherly love.” Forget about it as a word with meaning aside from the city.
With this in mind, we can hear this slogan as if it’s being said by some nameless organization or being – It’s the collective of the city itself, or perhaps even God saying, “Allow Philadelphia, the city, to endure.”
Once more, I want to mess around with this sentence’s meaning. For the purpose of this exercise, let’s assume it’s whatever God you choose to believe in saying it.
God is saying “Let Philadelphia endure,” but not as in “Please allow Philadelphia to keep on going peacefully.” God is saying, “Allow Philadelphia to be the one that endures. Let Philadelphia be the one to take the shit.”
As of writing, it’s been 17 days since the Eagles lost in the Super Bowl, and 116 days since the Philadelphia Union lost the MLS Cup Final and the Philadelphia Phillies lost the World Series in the same evening. Until 17 days ago, no sports city had lost three major championships within a year.
Until…
I’ve written before about the state of the Philadelphia sports fan (and citizen overall). These types of losses, where they’re almost poetic in the way they kick you in the groin especially hard, seem like they’re designed for Philadelphia. There have been worse, more pathetic sports cities. But this is rare air. This has never happened before. It feels like it was destined for Philly.
And, it leads me to examine the way the universe or God or whatever continues to punish us.
In order to pinpoint exactly how and why Philadelphia has had to suffer in this specific, previously unprecedented way, I believe there are a couple schools of thought that we could examine.
The first is that of manifestation. In short, Philadelphia did this to itself because we manifested this aggressive loser energy and endless cycle of getting the shit kicked out of us.
Philadelphia, specifically its sports fans, are a proprietary blend of cockiness without any of the real success to warrant it. We’re not like the 0-16 Detroit Lions or perma-sad Cleveland Browns. But the city has created a persona of constant shit talking, often without having the tangible successes to back it up (most of the time). That idea transcends sports, too.
We’re always in the race, we’re always gloating while we’re running, and we always trip on a bucket and step on about five rakes and somehow our pants fall off in the process. The rest of the crowd, even the runners still behind us, all laugh because we made ourselves look like asses.
The way Philadelphia sports fans adopted the “No one likes us” song says it all. We want so badly to be this underdog. We’ve convinced ourselves and others that we’re an unlikable underdog to the point it came true. And you know what comes with being an underdog? Losing, like, 99% of the time!
The other idea that I came to after thinking about this for a while is Simulation Theory. Simulation Theory dictates that our reality as we perceive it is actually a computer simulation of some kind. Maybe it’s a “Matrix” situation where we’re all being used for batteries and this is just a dream created by computers. Who knows.
But the reason I think Simulation Theory can come into play as it relates to Philadelphia is that you can believe that every sports fandom that achieves prolonged success doesn’t actually exist in reality. All of those Patriots, Lakers, Yankees, etc. fans don’t actually exist. They’re NPC’s. It’s part of the simulation to show something that you could achieve, but you don’t. You never will.
This particular hypothesis bleeds over into the idea of solipsism, which is the belief that my consciousness, my mind, is the only thing that truly exists in the universe because it’s the only thing I can truly know exists. I have never been to Boston or Los Angeles. I cannot prove they exist beyond the simulation. They’re just the programmers showing us other people at the roulette table whose numbers do hit, while we watch the guy pull our chips away from us.
Philadelphian solipsism is so real. The city as a collective is pretty sure it’s the center of the universe. Ask anyone from here what’s west of Chester County. It’s “here be dragons” territory but the dragons are the Amish. There’s nothing but Philadelphia, the shore, and depending on where you went to college, Penn State. New York exists, but only as something to hate.
Three championship possibilities were dangled in front of Philadelphia this year. The city was on the cusp of becoming a championship city like it had never been before, which it always craved and believed it was destined to achieve. Finally the world would see Philly the way Philly saw Philly.
Instead, I watched the Union lose in heartbreaking, added-time fashion after Gareth Bale scored. Oh, yeah, side note: Gareth Bale is a hero for the soccer team across the Atlantic Ocean that I chose to support, which has only provided the exact same flavor of disappointment as Philadelphia sports fandom, adding further fuel to both of my theories that Philadelphians (or myself alone, if you want to veer into solipsism) willed this to happen, or the simulation is just recycling data to show me, like your brain processes information while you dream. Whatever is programming the simulation is doing this to hurt me.
Screw you, nerd.
After the Union lost, I buttoned up the Phillies jersey I was wearing over my Union jersey, and then I watched the Phils get knocked out by an ultimate villain boss fight team like Houston (another city I have never been to and cannot prove exists).
But, surely the city couldn’t go 3 for 3 in losses, right? Eventually, your number hits and you regain some of those chips. And, unlike previous years, the Eagles were actually a favorite. They were supposed to win.
Now, we can discuss refereeing decisions and “the script” here. I won’t get into that because I’m not an NFL analyst. Also, as someone who lives here, I’ve talked about it enough in real life. It’s tiring.
What I do know is that the latest in a long string of carrots dangled in front of us was yanked away, and we reached a level of suffering that only Philadelphia has before.
A level that only Philadelphia could endure.
Let Philadelphia endure. They can take it. Fuck em. They asked for it.
Maybe there’s a reason our chief musical output of the 21st century is emo. We’re really fucking good at getting beaten down, saying it didn’t actually hurt, celebrating it, complaining about it, inviting more heartbreak, living off of it, becoming synonymous with it, promising revenge on everyone else who laughs at us over it, inviting others who want to suffer to move here and join in it and make it their identity like us.
We’ll do it again. It’s scripted. It’s coded in the simulation. We’re not supposed to ever catch the carrot, because the carrot doesn’t exist. Only we exist.
And we exist to endure.
May You Live in Interesting Times
I don’t really gamble.
A lot of my friends have money on just about anything resembling athletic competition these days. Not a lot, but enough to make a mid-level college basketball game a little more interesting. The abundance of betting apps makes it incredibly easy to part with your money without thinking too hard about it.
I’ve played roulette a few times in casinos, but I justify it by saying it’s just gravity. There’s no real strategy. I play my family‘s birthdays and my favorite athletes’ numbers and hope for the best while enjoying a gin and tonic and people-watching.
It’s passive. I think my risk taking is limited to passive.
That’s why I don’t like playing scary video games either. I never have. I don’t want to be in the driver’s seat when scary shit is happening. I’m getting better at movies, and I’ll even watch someone else play a scary video game, because then it can wash over me and I can look at my phone until the part I don’t like is over. But I don’t have to participate in anything. That’s how I’m finally enjoying the plot of “The Last of Us” having never played the game.
To get scans for cancer every few months is a fucked up form of gambling, where the payout is great but the loss is, well, being told you have cancer, which is not great. Thankfully I’ve only received good news in the last two times I’ve played. But still. That is an insane thing to do over and over again if you look at it without that context.
Many people avoid going to the doctor just because they can’t bear to be told bad news. The way they see it, you can’t be told bad news if you don’t open yourself up to the possibility.
Being told you have cancer is just about the worst way to spend an afternoon. I wrote about that already. So why would anyone put themselves in a position where that could potentially happen on a semi-regular basis?
Well, unfortunately, after successfully undergoing cancer treatment, something you have to do is repeatedly ask doctors to check to see if you have cancer still/again. And, if they find cancer, they call you and tell you you have cancer.
Actually, that’s not necessarily true anymore.
It turns out smartphone developers have found a use for them besides making gambling on sports easy, and medical offices will send you test results through an app, with acronyms and abbreviations and medical language that you, a moron with a BA from a state school, cannot decipher. Is it good news? Is it bad news? Guess! You just kind of have to use the few context clues you’re given. And there’s no way to be passive and wait for the scary part to just wash over you there.
Imagine how fucking crazy people would think you were if, in a vacuum, you just said, “So every four months I like to flip a coin. If it’s heads a doctor tells me I’m dying. If it’s tails, well, I just bought myself a few more months. Still at the table, baby! Chip and a chair!” It’s like Russian Roulette with more steps.
Being effectively treated for metastatic cancer has turned me into the most fucked up gambler in the world with the most intense stakes possible. And I never wanted to be a risk taker.
But, damn is that prize for winning ever good.
It’s … nothing. It sounds underwhelming until you’ve been on the losing end of this game.
When you win nothing, your life opens back up again. You get to worry about other dumb things like a higher-than-usual gas bill. You get to fulfill all of the plans you’ve made for the next few months, even the ones you don’t want to do. Everything is the good stuff. Going to the gym. Work trips. Vacations. Unseasonably cold days. Establishing a better skincare routine. Getting in arguments with people.
There’s a certain freedom that comes with being able to worry about small things and feel inconvenienced again. It’s a joy to feel some sort of mild internal pain and remember that it is 100% not cancer. There’s nothing sweeter than living a life full of stories that have no point and no good ending. Like this week I switched over to a single-blade safety razor to shave because I read that my multi-blade razor might be what’s causing breakouts and ingrown hairs. I’m not sure if it actually works yet, but I guess it’s worth a try.
See? That story was pointless! I want to wear my friends and colleagues down with stories like that because I have nothing more interesting going on in my life.
You’ve probably heard the phrase “May you live in interesting times.” You probably also know that, while it comes off as a blessing or the hope that you can live in exciting times, it’s actually a curse. With “interesting times” come stress. Fear. Tragedy.
War is interesting. Famine, plagues, all of these are horrible, interesting things to live through.
I don’t want to live in interesting times.
Now, let me be clear that this is not meant to be some “Oh, you don’t know how good you all actually have it, appreciate the little things,” pseudo-enlightenment from cancer boy here. Do whatever you want! Take everything in your life for granted! Smoke cigarettes! That’s your choice and you are (presumably) an American – or maybe even from a country with even more freedom! Just because I don’t like scary video games doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play them!
I just know I’ve spent my life until now trying to limit variables, so when the biggest variable I could imagine came into play, I craved the boring. In boring times, you get to keep moving forward at whatever pace you want. Or you can choose not to move at all! That’s your prerogative! To live a boring life is a gift. Mundane existence is to be treasured. The prize for winning this game is getting to eat leftovers and watch “The Last of Us” because playing it is too scary.
There’s a line in a song by Modern Baseball that I think about a lot. It feels more poignant now than ever.
“Waking up everyday is all about doing things you don’t want to do. But your reward is you get to wake up.”
Waking up is absolutely a reward. Waking up to another day of the “same old” rocks. You know what also rocks more than waking up? Going to sleep. Now there’s a reward. Hitting the pillow without the plausible threat of death looming in the corner? That’s the good stuff. Waking up from a bad dream and realizing, “Oh, everything’s still good. Nice." Then you go back to sleep and have a different dream about high school or whatever.
I don’t gamble much in real life because casinos and betting apps aren’t a charity. The house always wins.
So far, though, at the table I’m forced to sit at, I’m up a pretty good little stack of chips. In real life, this is when I’d call it a night with a modest payout. Not enough to make for an interesting story, but enough to pay for a decent dinner. That’s fine with me. More than fine, really.
But, I have no choice but to let it ride.
This week’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Shame.
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