Winning is everything

Okay, fine, fine. It's not everything, it's the only thing.


Which is surprising considering that it doesn't seem to be the reason I play the weekly trivia at my local bar. We contested for over a year without getting any higher than third (and that only once) and my interest never flagged nor my spirits shrank. Certainly one of my teammates is more focused on winning, and is usually more crushed or dispirited when we lose but it's never had that meaning for me.

Somewhere in it, I think, is the fact that I go and play simply because it offers a confirmation that simply knowing a fact, a thing, a tidbit, is a pleasure in and of itself. I like knowing things, even if they are in no way useful. Trivia contests offer a rare opportunity to exercise both the knowledge and the pleasure of knowing. A key ingredient for me is the pleasure I take in other people's knowledge. I always prefer the evening where the correct answers are equitably provided by all my teammates rather than just one or two. Last night was a good example of this.

At any rate, we are winning, placing, and showing at a regular pace now, are in the season finals, and can approach the contest each week with a fair level of confidence. We won last night, by our largest margin yet.

Cheers.