The Quest to be Superior

See if these words strike a chord in you. WE ALL STRIVE TO BE SUPERIOR. I'm the best MC, the best mom, the best point guard. Superlatives are really what people desire. Most likely to be on television or in my case, Most Likely to become the fourth member of a boy band (at the time BozIIMen) while preaching on weekends. That was the fortune fortold of me in 1993 as high school concluded. I kind of preach some weekends but I never got that call from Bell Biv Devoe telling me I was what they needed.

There's probably no better indicator of just how much people want to be superior than when men participate in 3-on-3 basketball. I got that call on Friday night asking me to fill in at the Nike3on3 at LA Live held this past weekend. First bout with superiority? My knee. It didn't feel good as a result of my Wednesday game but was I going to submit to injury. You already know the buffoonish retort. HECKKKKKK NAW! I'm a man. So I played. And I took Advil which I never do as insurance. Keep in mind, I wasn't asked to save a life or walk into a burning building to retrieve babies. I was asked to play basketball in one of the most volatile environments. And so i quested to be superior to my weakness and then to be superior to other weekend warriors.

Why is 3-on-3 so bad? Because every trained basketball player and coach knows that this is one of the purest forms of basketball. If you screen and cut, communicate and move without the ball in your hands, it's poetry in motion. If you're selfless and you exploit match-ups, spoils go to the cerebral. But that's not the brand of hoop played in front of Staples Center. It's more like, "Nah bruh, I gotta pound that dude. He's being physical so I'm gonna be physical. He's shoving so why play basketball when I can bruise." I watched brutish men throw each other around like it was a WWE Royal Rumble. And it's not about prize money. It's about that P-R-I-D-E. I'm the alpha, no I'm the alpha and so-on. Question is...why the quest for such an elusive payoff? It'd be equally asinine to chase the tail most humans weren't born with or attempt to taste wind. Who's superior? Is Kobe Bryant , who in 17 seasons of NBA participation has won 5 championships to date? Because then, by superior, we mean reaching the pinnacle of performance only 29 percent of the time qualifies as superior. Or go with Mike Jordan because he got 6 in about 15 seasons. Okay, so now I'm at 40 percent success which in my classes growing up equated with TAKE YO DUMB BUTT HOME AND STUDY SOME MO' because 40 percent is an F-minus.

So somewhere along the line, a myth was purported and spread that superiority is achievable. Drake wasn't the first guy to assert that he started from the bottom (which he didn't) and rose to stardom via hard work. The myth of questing for superiority promises that it's accessible for the relentless. I assure you it is not as evidenced by 3-on-3 basketball and athletes worldwide. I was at the Drew League at King/Drew Magnet High School in South Central yesterday.  I saw James Harden and Metta World Peace team up and lose a close one to a team of less famous men. It was funny too because the player formerly known as Ron Artest once maliciously elbowed Harden in the back of the head a couple of years back causing him to leave a game. I digress.

Back to the lecture at hand though, there's something evil about questing for superiority. It's like we weren't meant to actually be God. We are housed in these mortal frames with limitations that stem from our emotions, vices, physical injury, etc. No one can rule forever. No one can be the best everyday. And so why make claims that you can. The first time I saw a dead man in the streets it was allegedly due to one man's failed quest for superiority. He had been in an altercation earlier that day and had successfully beaten up a man who after the beat-down vowed to come back with a gun. The recipient of said ass-whipping kept his promise. And the superior became fatally inferior and the inferior became, for a moment, superior. Ah...to know what came of that shooter though. Ancient wisdom literature says that, "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." While in the midst of time and chance our quests are better spent on discovering purpose. I can assure you that I wasn't put on Earth just to win a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. I'd certainly like to believe there's more for me here than that.