A hearty hello to the STEEM community! Big Ben here, but you can just call me Ben (I assure you, the nickname is far less arrogant than it seems). I've been curious about this site for quite some time now, and now that I've joined, I'm kicking myself for having waited so long. I look forward to the STEEM experience, and I'm confident that my feverishly hyperactive prose will entertain and educate in equal measure.
To offer some context to future posts, here's a bit about me:
- "Who am I?"
-Aaack, the impossible question, the one I ask myself daily. At the risk of sounding obtuse, I struggle to answer this myself. But just as a quick primer: I'm a young US male, trudging towards a university degree part-time, working in the bartending scene and living as hubristically as possible. I grew up in a military family, with its rugged on-base lifestyle, and its constant, nigh-yearly moves to new states and new lives: As all army brats know well, the life makes you rootless and resilient, but destroys your capacity for long-term socialization & habituates you to social ostracism. When you're always the new kid, you get used to the role.
I spent my schooling dabbling in as many pursuits as possible: Scholastic competition, debate, theatre, prose/poetry, even the inanities of choir, but my passions were always in contact sports. Football was my paramour, and wrestling its complement. But college athletics took a backseat to my academic scholarships, and I trudged through my university years largely uninspired. But financial hardship & family drama forced a transfer from my expensive private college to an affordable public college; in hindsight, this crisis became a valuable source of wisdom. Thus here I stand today, fallen but not vanquished, older but much wiser.
"What will I be posting?"
-Everything. Quite literally, anything and everything. The cultural significance of Norwegian Black Metal's explosion in the early 90s, the history of Haile Selassie's Imperial Ethiopia, a rant on how terrible my local underground thrash-punk shows are, perhaps even a theory of Frank Herbert's Fremen being analogous to Mujahideen. I find the myopic focus on a small sphere of subjects to be an insult to the human mind. In fact, I find it uniquely insightful to choose heretofore-unknown subjects to explore and analyze and self-immerse, and I'm sure it will show in my posting. But as a general rule, my posts will be political, cultural, historical, or philosophical in nature about 75% of the time. The rest will be personal anecdote or unintelligible gibberish or rants about music/film."Why should I care?"
-You probably shouldn't. If you aren't a fan of hyper-opinionated, esoteric diatribes on things no one cares about, my advice is to avoid ol' Big Ben and his shitposts. But if you defiantly rebuff this advice, I applaud your bravery, and I sincerely hope you're enlightened or inspired or consoled (or get your jimmies rustled) by something I share. And most importantly, I love feedback on what the community would like to see me explore next."You said there'd be an apology?"
-Oh, that's right, I almost forgot. I preemptively apologize to any/all who will be offended, angered, enraged, perturbed, disgusted, or otherwise negatively influenced by my posts. Because I've got an arsenal of opinions, an argumentative nature, and a habit of saying uncomfortable truths, and an acquired immunity to giving a shit.
But all humor aside, I'm excited to interact with each and every reader, and I'm sure I'll be learning the nuances of this platform for quite some time. Feel free to reach out to me anytime! I'll be adding another intro post soon w/ a picture greeting, so stay tuned.
"Your life is a blade; may it never dull."
-Big Ben
Proper entertaining first post! Well done :). SO how tall is ol Big Ben then?
Appreciate the props m8! Rest assured, I only get better. Check my Gab to see a sample.
How tall? Heh, not very tall at all, just 5'9"; the nickname stems from Oklahoma drills in my football days, and how I'd always hit like a giant brick wall. Ironically, my college rugby club nicknamed me Bam-Bam for the same reason! I've just always had a knack for contact.
Rugby! Now I would love to hear your take on Rugby vs Football then. We always joke as SOuth Africans about ya'll 'merican folk wearing them spacesuits
Rugby is much better, and much more fun, but a bit harder & it requires different athlete types than American football. I'm just upset I never had a chance to learn it until college!
It's like me with soccer. My school didn't have it, it's not very popular with white communities :/
One day in 2002 with the FIFA World Cup, during exam time, my friend who hated studying proposed I take a break by us going to the hockey field and playing soccer. We had two other guys coming, and eventually that grew into around 40 guys playing all at once! It was crazy so much fun! Unfortunately I tore a ligament in my kneecap but it was some if the best fun I have had. We were all like "why in the world do we not have this sport at school???"
But yea rugby is pretty awesome extremely tactical (but I believe Am Football is like that too), and yes it can be very dangerous too but the rules get adapted consistently with modern understandings of typical injury-prone situations. That makes it harder for referees - it's like being a mechanic: people think a doctor studies long but a mechanic has to stay up-to-date with every new model haha!
My son won't be ushered into rugby though. If he wants to he can pursue it, but you gain no manliness by running after a ball. You gain it by considering others and being sensitive and caring to their situations and feelings. Manliness comes when you have to defend those things
No insult to the players, but I never did like soccer. Sports that don't permit contact always seemed boring to me, since the historical roots of sport have always been as martial training for young men. I think the best sports are those that combine physical ability, toughness, and intellect, and rugby does that best.
Plus, coming from a long time football player, rugby is actually a bit safer than football in my experience! Football players tend to overact because they feel safe behind pads and helmets, and the stop-start gameplay leads to muscle/ligament injury. Rugby forces you to hit and tackle with the knowledge that you're not protected, so it leads to good habits like protecting your neck, attacking the opponent's lower body, etc. Plus rugby is a constant movement, so the muscles/ligaments never stop and tighten up.
I hope if I have a son he'll pursue some contact sport (football, rugby, lacrosse, wrestling), because I know I've learned many valuable lessons from them. But I also want him to be interested in more than sport.
Yea I hear what you are saying. I also did learn many invaluable lessons from playing rugby - the comradery, discipline, perseverance, and so many others. So in light of what you said, perhaps I did overstate my thoughts on it. Yes it is dangerous, and me not being 40 yet and already experiencing some of the injuries post-years is proof to me of that. But apart from the danger, I remember the aggression I used to experience at times, and although the sport was sometimes a led-out for stress, I believe there are less stress- and anger-inducive ways to express it by.
But just in terms of sport and it's qualities, I think rugby is a tremendously developed sport and it also is a great way to have fun while being very focused on something.
If I were to tell you my whole opinion and belief about competition between people in it's entirety you might just flag me :)
Welcome to Steemit! Wow, strong first post right there. High expectations for what's coming on this side of the Steam universe. Keep 'm coming!
Thanks for the good vibes m8. I've always had a love for writing, but never found any good outlet for my work. I hope my eclectic future posts will continue to impress!
welcome to the crypto-currency universe
Much appreciated! I'll fit right in, me & my BtC wallet worth the whopping sum of $7.50. Heheh.
kicks past self for failing to buy up BtC in year one
Welcome to Steemit @big-ben!
I wish you much success and hope you find Steemit to be as rewarding and informative as I have.
Here are some links you might find useful.
Your stats on SteemNow
Your stats on SteemWorld
Your stats on SteemD
How to use Minnow Booster
How does Steemit actually work?
Introbot is hosted and managed with donations from @byColeman to help make your journey on Steemit be truly rewarding. Your feedback is always welcome so that we may improve this welcome message.
Oh yea, I have upvoted you and followed you. Many blessings from @introbot & @bycoleman
Hey man, I'm Oatmeal Joey Arnold, and you are cool.
Hey Joey, appreciate the kind words! I've never thought of myself as cool, but merely "uniquely situated". Life has taught me that one should never inflate their own importance. We're all just travelers on a big floating ball, after all.
Come on brother, content before support! You need to create value before you can expect to reap benefits.