What is this passion that draws us to live and die by the Purple year in and out?  More often than not we come off from the quest as jitled lovers sipping from a tainted coctail taunting us of the "could have beens".  The Vikings are opium in our lives.  We satiate ourselves to the point of obliteration only to come off hung over from bittersweet nothings.  Each week we belong to something eminating pride, yet fall ever so short of reaching the goal: the proverbial 4th and 1.  Devotion and pride blur the lines of masochism and stubborn diligence.  Why do we bleed violet and gold?  Is it a choice?  Does a man chose this as much as he chooses to breathe the next second?  Or do the Vikes substitute something great in our lives?  Something to replace the mundane oddities of every day life.  For 3 hours every week, we get to belong to a weathered fraternity.  We aren't Virginians, Oklahomans, Minnesotans, South Dakotans, or Floridians..we are Pride.  We are the embodyment of everything Nordic.  Strength, honor, fortitude, the bulwark of struggle.  The day may not always arise to the jubilant sunset, yet is rises none the less.  When we fail, we have the choice to get back up.  I chose to do just that.  Skol Vikings, Skol Purple, Skol Adrian Peterson.  At the end of the day we can say we bled our life's sustainance onto the battlefield.  The tepid waters of Packerland or Chicago cannot say as much.  We are Vikings.  We will prevail.  Strength and honor brothers.  This is why I bleed purple.