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[This is part of a series exploring the Baseball Tarot. If you would like to prompt for a part of the game or a card from the deck, all the rest of the month is available for your curiosity, about either baseball or Tarot. Leave a comment with a prompt if you want in. All other comments are still welcome, of course.]
It is not possible to go through a baseball career, or a life, without encountering things that negatively affect the player, whether emotionally or physically. Many platitudes about this insist that the attitude one shows in relation to the bad things is more important about how those things resolve than the bad things themselves. This can take the form of insistence on relentlessly cheery and positive attitudes toward all things that could be setbacks or problems, with the idea that of can fake the positive attitude until it becomes genuine. This takes significant effort to achieve.
The other major track taken tends to be the one espoused during meditation practices - if one can see things as just that - things, and thoughts as thoughts, without becoming attached to either the things or the thoughts, one is able to handle most of life without getting too affected by it. For example:
Admittedly, a lot of the things that we get the most upset about are "the small stuff" that we're not supposed to sweat it be bothered by. Except that the small stuff has a habit of snowballing, especially when they are part of the category properly named "microagression", where the sum total of all the little things often explodes into a big thing, where observers that don't have the context tend to believe that someone is reacting way out of proportion to the tiny thing that just happened. One can only have balls pitched at one's head so many times before there will be words with the pitcher, assuming that the umpire has not intervened properly by this point. In baseball, the umpire is instructed to intervene immediately and eject the pitcher, and possibly the manager, if they suspect the pitcher is deliberately throwing at a batter. In life, the umpires often look the other way, think the batter deserved it, or are inexplicably both pitcher and umpire.
It's safe to say that there is a limit to what someone can take without reacting to it. And sometimes the reaction can generate consequences, if things boil over in the wrong way between someone with privilege and someone without.
The quality most admired without suspicion (as the relentlessly positive and the essentially Zen are both regarded as people not showing their real feelings about things that come across their path) is not about the reaction - it's about what follows. After having a holler, or a stomp, or just suppressing it all because it's not safe to say what you really think (after all, saying that you think the umpire is incompetent is a fast way to getting ejected from the game), what comes next? Can a player let it go and focus on the next pitch or at-bat? Do they channel their reaction into crushing the next pitch into the stands? Do they go talk things over with a coach for a bit before coming back? Do they have to be substituted out because they can't get their head back in the game? Do they go to the commissioner and propose new rules that will direct the problems with the current ones?
Do they lead a player strike until the problems get fixed?
It takes a certain kind of inner strength to be able to keep going after being laid out and ground into the dirt by the universe and the people around you. I work with kids and teenagers a lot, and one of the things that kids and teens need is stable and loving adult relationships. They don't have to be familial ones - in fact, since of the teens most in need of those relationships aren't getting it from their family. Adverse childhood experiences make it harder for any given child to succeed in life. Those that make it have developed a quality that allows them to take blows, fail repeatedly, and then get back up and keep trying. Because they have the support they need to adventure, experiment, and confide in trusted people. They have developed resilience. Which is not the sort of thing one gains through facetious arguments like "children must earn their trophies and medals for doing well, rather than mere participation." Because for some children, participation is the important part, where the adults that care for them get to watch them perform and cheer them on, and the children get to see the adults doing it. Building resilience means having an environment where a child or a teen can say, "I want to be a baseball player when I grow up" and the adults there will help them with as much of that dream as they can, while the child is still interested in it, and will be okay when that dream shifts or changes to something else. And where a child can say, "My pronouns are they/them/theirs" or "I'd like you to meet my boy/girl friend" and they will not be thrown out because God disapproves or told their identities are just a phase and referred to using the wrong name or pronouns, and if someone is bullying them and an adult sees it, that the adults will do something about it other than join in our blame the child for getting bullied.
The essence of the MVP of Mitts is "Accomplishments of the heart and spirit." Many of those things outwardly manifest in being a true and authentic self to the people around. That requires the environment around to be able to accept them for who they are, and for them to be willing to risk finding out whether that environment will support them. Resilience, at its core, requires empathy. The empathetic environment to build the resilience, and then the empathetic environment needed to connect with another person as a person and let them exist as they are, even if their particular existence is not one that you would undertake.
The downsides of this card, should they ever manifest, are fairly clear. "Conversion therapy", marriage bans, deadnaming, mass shootings and violence, homelessness, yellow stars, Muslim registries, and the list goes on. Most of the ill things humans can do to each other stem from something other than empathy being used as a core principle. And while it would be preferable to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, until that happens, we must develop resilience against the things others will do, and the things we will do to others, out of fear and ignorance and conscious decisions that other people aren't worth as much.
"I set her down back at the river," the monk says at the end of the story. "Why are you still carrying her?"
It is not possible to go through a baseball career, or a life, without encountering things that negatively affect the player, whether emotionally or physically. Many platitudes about this insist that the attitude one shows in relation to the bad things is more important about how those things resolve than the bad things themselves. This can take the form of insistence on relentlessly cheery and positive attitudes toward all things that could be setbacks or problems, with the idea that of can fake the positive attitude until it becomes genuine. This takes significant effort to achieve.
The other major track taken tends to be the one espoused during meditation practices - if one can see things as just that - things, and thoughts as thoughts, without becoming attached to either the things or the thoughts, one is able to handle most of life without getting too affected by it. For example:
A Story of Two MonksFor things that would be colloquially termed "the small stuff", this kind of attitude may be helpful in preventing something small from exploding out of proportion by providing necessary perspective. During a game, sometimes you make outs, give up hits, or commit errors. These things happen, so don't dwell on past mistakes, because the next pitch is already set and ready for delivery, and the team needs your focus on the present.
Once there were two monks traveling when they arrived at a river. At the river they discovered a woman struggling to get across. Without a second thought, the older of the two monks asked the woman if she needed help, then swiftly picked her up and carried her across to the other bank.
It should be understood that for monks, especially in ancient times, any contact with the opposite sex would be strongly frowned upon, if not forbidden. The actions of the older monk greatly troubled the younger monk, who allowed his feelings to fester for several miles while they continued their journey.
Finally, the younger monk confronted the older monk, "How could you have done such a thing? We are not even supposed to be in a woman's presence, but you touched her, carried her even!"
The older monk calmly replied, "I put that woman down miles ago, back at the river. But you are still carrying her." The younger monk realized the older monk was indeed correct and they continued on their journey.
Admittedly, a lot of the things that we get the most upset about are "the small stuff" that we're not supposed to sweat it be bothered by. Except that the small stuff has a habit of snowballing, especially when they are part of the category properly named "microagression", where the sum total of all the little things often explodes into a big thing, where observers that don't have the context tend to believe that someone is reacting way out of proportion to the tiny thing that just happened. One can only have balls pitched at one's head so many times before there will be words with the pitcher, assuming that the umpire has not intervened properly by this point. In baseball, the umpire is instructed to intervene immediately and eject the pitcher, and possibly the manager, if they suspect the pitcher is deliberately throwing at a batter. In life, the umpires often look the other way, think the batter deserved it, or are inexplicably both pitcher and umpire.
It's safe to say that there is a limit to what someone can take without reacting to it. And sometimes the reaction can generate consequences, if things boil over in the wrong way between someone with privilege and someone without.
The quality most admired without suspicion (as the relentlessly positive and the essentially Zen are both regarded as people not showing their real feelings about things that come across their path) is not about the reaction - it's about what follows. After having a holler, or a stomp, or just suppressing it all because it's not safe to say what you really think (after all, saying that you think the umpire is incompetent is a fast way to getting ejected from the game), what comes next? Can a player let it go and focus on the next pitch or at-bat? Do they channel their reaction into crushing the next pitch into the stands? Do they go talk things over with a coach for a bit before coming back? Do they have to be substituted out because they can't get their head back in the game? Do they go to the commissioner and propose new rules that will direct the problems with the current ones?
Do they lead a player strike until the problems get fixed?
It takes a certain kind of inner strength to be able to keep going after being laid out and ground into the dirt by the universe and the people around you. I work with kids and teenagers a lot, and one of the things that kids and teens need is stable and loving adult relationships. They don't have to be familial ones - in fact, since of the teens most in need of those relationships aren't getting it from their family. Adverse childhood experiences make it harder for any given child to succeed in life. Those that make it have developed a quality that allows them to take blows, fail repeatedly, and then get back up and keep trying. Because they have the support they need to adventure, experiment, and confide in trusted people. They have developed resilience. Which is not the sort of thing one gains through facetious arguments like "children must earn their trophies and medals for doing well, rather than mere participation." Because for some children, participation is the important part, where the adults that care for them get to watch them perform and cheer them on, and the children get to see the adults doing it. Building resilience means having an environment where a child or a teen can say, "I want to be a baseball player when I grow up" and the adults there will help them with as much of that dream as they can, while the child is still interested in it, and will be okay when that dream shifts or changes to something else. And where a child can say, "My pronouns are they/them/theirs" or "I'd like you to meet my boy/girl friend" and they will not be thrown out because God disapproves or told their identities are just a phase and referred to using the wrong name or pronouns, and if someone is bullying them and an adult sees it, that the adults will do something about it other than join in our blame the child for getting bullied.
The essence of the MVP of Mitts is "Accomplishments of the heart and spirit." Many of those things outwardly manifest in being a true and authentic self to the people around. That requires the environment around to be able to accept them for who they are, and for them to be willing to risk finding out whether that environment will support them. Resilience, at its core, requires empathy. The empathetic environment to build the resilience, and then the empathetic environment needed to connect with another person as a person and let them exist as they are, even if their particular existence is not one that you would undertake.
The downsides of this card, should they ever manifest, are fairly clear. "Conversion therapy", marriage bans, deadnaming, mass shootings and violence, homelessness, yellow stars, Muslim registries, and the list goes on. Most of the ill things humans can do to each other stem from something other than empathy being used as a core principle. And while it would be preferable to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, until that happens, we must develop resilience against the things others will do, and the things we will do to others, out of fear and ignorance and conscious decisions that other people aren't worth as much.
"I set her down back at the river," the monk says at the end of the story. "Why are you still carrying her?"
