We live in a society. That’s a strange way of starting an article that’s probably about sports.

Believe it or not, human intelligence peaked thousands of years ago. Imagine having to forage a forest for survival, with a simple snack requiring heavy strategizing. This wasn’t just physically distressing; it was intellectually stimulating. And in an age of great antiquity, this was commonplace.

Of course, a more pronounced division of labor between men and women had existed (hunting and gathering), but the point stands – humans had many more far-reaching responsibilities. No stone could be left unturned. We honestly operated as mini societies of our own.

Eating might be our most automated task of today. Kick-back, relax, turn on some TV, stuff your face. Does it matter if we know the process of cultivating the crops? There’s an entire supply chain to get the food to your house.

It’s not just food obviously. We don’t need to understand how electricity gets to our houses. We just pay a bill. We live in a society. A society that abstracts away the hardships that humans thousands of years ago faced.

But humans like involving themselves. We enjoy having control on many different fronts. We enjoy the flexibility of handpicking every component in our PC’s, a satisfaction perhaps derived from a primal instinct within ourselves.

But there are some things in life that we can’t easily involve ourselves in. For instance, professional sports- we can’t play for the teams we want to win. We watch helplessly as the better team claims victory. But that’s the premise of professional sports- it’s an exciting unpredictability.

Some of us want to feel more involved. There are sports fans that get emotionally attached to their teams, to the point of induced depression if their team loses. An NBA twitter discourse can demonstrate this attachment. Fans often don’t recognize that they aren’t on the team and any result will not directly impact them.  

That’s not always true. Any average fan can engage in sports betting, whereby the game is completely monetized and can hold financial implications. This is a next-level involvement, perhaps the closest you can get to “play” the game without literally playing the game. Especially with today’s technology, fast payouts are achievable and Vegas betting odds are one Google search away.

Maybe it’s not healthy to place that much significance on an activity that’s essentially meant to serve as entertainment.

Talking about any sport in a reductionist sense makes it sound trivial. For instance, basketball can be described as people placing a ball in a ring that’s attached to a net. At the professional level, instead of people, they’re millionaires, and they’re really good at placing the ball in the ring. Should that really have an impact in our lives?  

The bottom line is that humans love to bet. It’s addictive. It’s an aforementioned human instinct.

It’s not just sports. An investment in the stock market is, in essence, a bet. You don’t know if your shares will appreciate or depreciate with time. You can’t control that either. But when you buy a share, you’re buying a stake in a company. You technically own a portion of the company, further entrenching yourself in a rabbit hole you didn’t need to fall into.

Our society affords us a choice- should I involve myself in something or not? It’s far less mentally taxing to choose the latter. If you watch basketball in a detached manner, it doesn’t matter who wins or loses. It’s probably not as fun or beneficial, but there’s less risk.

Life is laden with risks. There’s more risk associated with subsistence farming and foraging (weather, low surplus, etc.), than buying commercially. However, there’s a benefit of reassurance, knowing exactly what’s going into your body.

We play this game of risk every day. It’s called prioritizing. That’s just the way our society functions. In college, you declare a major, committing yourself to a niche for the foreseeable future. We aren’t allowed to be jacks-of-all-trades.

So why do we play? It’s vitally important that you expand your horizons. Having different avenues to explore can prevent monotony. Involvement and participation serve as the kernel to our humanity.