Welcome to the sports blog, where we talk about sports. In a way, this is related to sports because what’s so different between Tyreek Hill catching a pass as two men 75 pounds heavier than him rush at him from opposite sides in a trademark Dolphins hospital pass and cutting the heart out of a prisoner? And after witnessing the solar eclipse at 94pc totality I think I finally understand human sacrifices. Not in a “we should bring it back” way. More in a “oh that’s why they did that” way. I had this out-of-body experience watching the Moon glide and eclipse the Sun and was like connecting to a past I didn’t understand (this sounds like schizoposting, I promise it gets funny).
I haven’t posted a blog in about a week, which is pretty unlike me; posting 4 times a week or so is my go-to. But I just haven’t been inspired by anything within the last. Sure, I have some things coming down the pipe, but I just haven’t been writing them. This is the first time in the past week I’ve felt the zeal to type something up, so allow me the courtesy to pontificate my caveman-like experience.
Now, you may appropriately ask, “Jorden how did you come to this wild conclusion?” Well, I find it fun to dabble in the weirder parts of the internet. Like, if a new theory is proposed that the oceans are astral projections from CERN-controlled psycho-psychics, I would like to know about that early on. Why? Everyone needs hobbies, and mine are writing about sports and keeping up with the brightest and dullest minds that we, as a species, have to offer. If you stuck with me through that sentence, I worry for you. If you didn’t, how is your relationship?
But for some reason, these same types have been angry about interest in the eclipse. There seems to be this disdain for people admiring the beauty of the cosmic dance. I grew up around space and have always been fascinated by the idea that there’s a whole universe out there. Look up at the sky and the remnants of now-dead stars, dead eons before my existence was even feasible, sending signs of life through light. And I mentioned the cosmic dance. You know what’s incredibly cool? Gravitational pull and how it affects the way planets and moons and all other celestial bodies act. This is all to say I love to bask in the beauty of the cosmos. But guys like this don’t seem to understand.
This wasn’t some nobody; he had like 35k followers. I would check, but his account is gone. The thing I found most depressing was the number of people agreeing with him. Like the Gathering of the Juggalos, the comment section was full of clowns. Ridiculous clowns who would take every bit of the glory of nature and bash it, like a child who doesn’t understand why the family trip to Pensacola is important.
Human Sacrifices in the Dark
This was supposed to be a funnier blog, but as important day turned to night, this blog has changed its course somewhat. Going into today, it wasn’t like I didn’t understand the magnitude of the eclipse. Maybe I mentally overestimated it, especially because in reality I wasn’t going to see the totality happening a few hours drive away. And, in reality, I had neglected to purchase or obtain eclipse glasses. I rawdogged it, because I don’t let the lamestream media control what I do with my eyes.
Space is cool, even if a select trove of internet conspiracists like to downplay it. I could also offer up a lot of tweets that gained a disturbing amount of traction who do not seem to comprehend how bright the sun is. Or comprehend how an eclipse occurs and why it occurs. There also seem to be a good amount of people who seem to think the ISS is like a car or an airplane and just show up in the path of eclipse whenever it feels like it. But, this tweet underscores where I’m about to go with this.
And that leads us to human sacrifices. This is where I need to put in some sort of disclaimer to a future psychologist that I am not crazy and do not want to sacrifice humans. That act is hanging around the top of my “Do Not Do” list with standing below Morgan Wallen in Nashville and asking the Texas Rangers’ management to handle my event banner.
But it does bring me to discussing the earliest known human viewing of an eclipse. About 5000 years ago, someone or someones, carved what appears to be a solar eclipse into a rock. And not too far from there seem to be charred human remains. This is all wild speculation because only Aaron Rodgers knows the secrets of the universe, but even he will have trouble understanding the Neolithic era. And, in reality, no one is actually going to have the best explanation. Some say they were sacrifices to a Sun god. Others maintain it was a burial site. Maybe only the Sun and the Moon know those secrets.
It’s not like human sacrifices in relation to an eclipse are some concept I learned about yesterday. I watched Apocolypto when I was in middle school, and that eclipse scene was dazzling to 12-year-old Jorden. Call me a fake history lover because Mel Gibson gets a lot wrong (who could’ve guessed), but that move kind of kicked ass.
So, as I stared up into the sky, two pairs of sunglasses as an impromptu eye shield, I kind of got it. Not in the “I think killing people is cool” get it. But in the powerlessness way of getting it. I can only imagine some ancient human looking up in the midday sky and seeing the Sun turn dark. It’s beautiful and awe-summoning and life-changing. It’s also terrifying to know these cosmic bodies are performing this intricate dance, and on the ground we are powerless. It’s a feeling of pessimistic optimism come to life. You’ve heard of crying in the club, but have you heard of existential crises during the eclipse?
I’m very much under the impression that ancient humans weren’t so much dumber than us. They just lacked a lot of critical information. So when the world turns dark at midday what’s the appropriate reaction? The world has genuinely changed upon seeing that. Is some higher being mad at you? Is the world ending? Can the Sun just turn off now? Obviously those same humans would probably never see it again. And as some time went on those same ancient humans learned to track eclipses. But even after that, eclipses were omens and meant much more than a trip to Oklahoma.
Maybe this shouldn’t have been about human sacrifices, but the existentialism of peering into the cosmos. But in that moment, staring upwards, I kind of understood where our ancestors were coming from. How do you reply to something you can’t understand? They were just trying their best to understand and survive. It’s not a whole lot different than us now middling away in self help books and courses and alpha male boot camps and all sorts of ways we try to explain what all this is about. We’re not so different; there’s nothing new under the Sun. Or in this case, there’s nothing new in front of the Sun.
Anyway, that’s that. Stick around this week when I call Zach Edey a loser and post “Get Ready to Learn Chinese Buddy” for his time on the Shanghai Sharks come a couple years. Who knows maybe I’ll finish my Draymond blog or my ode to UH basketball. This is just part of my way of understanding and finding my place in the world, like those Celts 5000 years ago.
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