It appears as though I have failed in making my point...
True enough, 99% of the golf population, 99% of the tennis population, and 99% of yes, the bowling population cannot see the problem with the technology, so they would mostly quit if technology went back say 30-40 years.
My first point was, I wonder what a psychologist might tell us about it all. I remember the movie "Pleasantville" where the home team always won and everybody always had a great day and everything was always "pleasant". Well in reality such a world doesn't exist, but we think if we do a, b, and c that we will be happy or "pleasant". Many of us are wise enough to know that this is just mythology, and know that if we truly have to work at something that it will make us a better and happier person in the long run.
The world has played a cruel joke on us all, er, I mean the bowling world has played a cruel joke on us all. They told us that if we embrace new technology and easier scoring conditions, that we will be happier in the end. Once we saw that it wasn't true, the world, er, the bowling world started to lie to us and tell us that this is how things always were and that it cannot be changed. Play this out for several years and pretty soon the world, er, bowling world actually has people preaching the lies to the masses and it becomes "general knowledge".
This is where we are stuck now. We have a general population of bowlers that don't know a better way and believe that things are the best that they can be. They cannot fathom (phathom?) how throwing a rubber bowling ball on a flatter oil pattern would somehow make them a happier bowler. They believe that happiness and contentment only exist about 1% - 5% of the time in life, and the same is true with bowling, so they accept the fact that they will score once in a while and that is what will make them happy. They don't care how the score happens, they just know that the score is what makes them happy, and that it will happen almost randomly whether they practice or not.
Bones, you know there was a better world, er, I mean bowling world. You lived in it. How can you just accept the way things are and let, or in fact, PREACH that things can never be that way again simply because everybody has been fooled for 30 years.
We can start the whole bowling trend again right now with the few of us that believe and want to see it happen. The only thing that exists today that didn't back then is the naysayers. Nobody was there saying it cannot happen or will not happen, because they were truly excited about the growth of the sport and the fun they had. Bones, this movement might not run its course in your lifetime, but who cares? The fact that it started again in OUR lifetime should not only be enlightening, but encouraging when we think about where the world (bowling world) may be heading and how we played a part in it all!
If the world is more screwed up upon my departure than it was when I came into it, then we have all failed and led meaningless lives. I for one would just quit bowling right now if I thought the sport was doomed to continue it's demise.
I just ain't ready to cash in my bowling equipment yet!
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Brian
MichiganBowling.com
http://www.MichiganBowling.comFamous Last Words of a Pot Bowler--"Ok, but this is my last game!"
Edited on 4/13/2005 11:14 AM
