FanPost

Viva Valhalla

As they say in the Wall Street Journal, in purely economic terms alone, stadia cannot be justified; but then, in purely economic terms no justification exists for the human race, either. Why have children and build schools if they are only going to grow up, create medical bills, and fill up the cemetaries?

"The cynic knows the price of everything but the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde

Did my 63-greats-grandfather (Frithuwald Bor--the progenitor of Viking leaders) know when he was born in Scythia somewhere north of the Caspian Sea in Asia around the year 190 that he'd one day grow up and become the Overlord of Asgard, thousands of miles distant in the land of ice and snow? Did he foresee that the offspring of Norse raiders, William the Bastard, would one day lead Norman armies in the year 1066 to slay Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, with an arrow to the head, so that Norman stone masons would have jobs building mighty castles all over England?



No, probably not. Life itself is not entirely logical, and certainly unpredictable. The unknown is part of the game, as is taking risks. Both are as inevitable as death and taxes.

Valhalla is the hall where the glorious half go to be with Odin. Senator Marty probably gets to go to Folkvang, reserved for the half of the dead who seemingly want to starve to death.

Zygi Wilf remembers sitting as a kid in a football stadium with his father. He is not investing 100's of millions of dollars in a stadium in New Jersey, he's building one in Minnesota along with Minnesotans. Why? I think it was touchdowns. You can't take money with you when you go.

If we had no aspirations, we would not be here. We'd have been collectively eaten for lunch and turned into petroleum for some more eager species to discover and use to pollute the atmosphere.

Did the pharaohs of Egypt build the pyramids because it was economical? No, they built them because it was awe inspiring.

And what about Sisyphus?

Sisyphus, I am told, was the founder of Corinth, the land of the Corinthians. People said he used to capture poor travelers and kill them for fun and profit. (I suppose he had his own Senator Marty who published newsletters about it.)

Sisyphus was wiley, and tricked the gods into letting him out of the underworld, because his wife had allegedly dishonored him, and then he pulled a stunt with some inescapable handcuffs and got the god of death chained up with a sales demo so that people could no longer die and reach the underworld. The gods were really upset with this, so they captured him and made him roll a giant rock up a mountainside, saying if he ever got it to the top, he'd be freed. (Kind of like, "Go forth and get us a plan and a local partner, say Anoka or Arden Hills, and we'll talk...")

The game for Sisyphus was rigged so that just as he neared the summit, the rock would roll to the bottom every time. The gods thought this would break Sisyphus' spirit. They were wrong. Sisyphus taunted the gods by just going back to fetch the rock and relentlessly move it upward.

You can't beat death, but you can get a tie and spit in his face.

It's like the crazy Italian they found rolling a rock aimlessly though Mexico: The border guards asked him what he thought he was doing. He said. "First, I'm a-gonna roll this-a here big rock though the desert; then I'm a-gonna roll this-a here big rock up-a U. S.!

Congratulations, Zyg, on getting that big rock over the hump!

Now maybe some of us will not die keeping our legs crossed in line at the restrooms, missing the third quarter, or somehow die in our seats from snow on the roof. After all, it is Minnesota.

Skol Vikings, let's go!

This FanPost was created by a registered user of The Daily Norseman, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the site. However, since this is a community, that view is no less important.