Gleeful losing

 I was listening to a podcast about cricket of all things and had an interesting little epiphany. 

The setup was about a particularly challenging match that was recently played where the general expectation was that one side was going to dominate and had potentially stacked the deck against the other side.  The final result was that the underdogs got the win, but thats not the point I am playing with.

The point is that going into that match, what is the mindset of the players?  They know that the match is important, so they cannot pretend that its not.  They have to find something in their mindset that is almost "gleefully defiant" even facing inevitable defeat (according to the media). They need to go into the match looking for ways to make their opponents bleed at every opportunity, not from spite (as that just doesn't last) but from some form of joy.  They have to genuinely find some joy in every little movement and task that they need to perform within the match and the leadup. 

Some of the players have spent their adult lives training and competing to this point and to go into the match without a positive joyful mindset would make everything a grind.  At some point that would break even the most stoic player. 

Someone showed me a meme about Sisyphus pushing the bolder but happy.  It completely changes the way that the task gets perceived.  It made me wonder about how to communicate that kind of task to a group.  It also reminded me of some of the more challenging mindsets of farmers in dry areas or during droughts, who are trying to keep their farms going or having to make hard decisions about reducing their flocks.  How do they find a perspective to keep walking forward? 

I have in my head some of the pep talks that I have seen given to troops in various war movies before they do something lethally stupid and how their leaders give them a mindset to do the impossible and illogical tasks in front of them.  Often its not in terms of winning but "going down in some spectacular fashion". For instance, the Spartans seeking a glorious death.

I think  the concept of "gleefully defiant" is as close as I can get to that mindset.  Deciding that even though you might be loosing, there is some dignity and self worth in stepping up and making the world bleed a little before you go. 

Perhaps this is a uniquely rural Australian thing.  I seem to have met quite a few people who have some variation of this philosophy.  Confronting the impossible but going and doing it anyway with a "Fuck it, lets see if we can make it cry before it gets us" kind of attitude.   I suspect we would find similar attitudes in other harsh environments... I just have no experience with those folk to speak from.  

I cannot really say that I have heard this point of view described with a pithy phrase that sticks in my head, but I feel like I have encountered it. Equal parts fatalist mixed with clenched teeth pig headedness and a dash of defiance.

Sisu, grit, determination, courage, tenacity etc all have some sense of possible winnning encoded in the idea.  The tasks may be difficult and take a resolute frame of mind, but they still see a chance of winning, right from the start. Often the situation is painted as some stubborn person who sees the chance, and is determined to "show them all". 

The "gleeful losing"mindset I am thinking about involves an acceptance of the inevitable failure before it even starts.  The insurmountable odds, the "no chance at all" kind of mentality.   But couched in terms that make it into an almost manic frame of mind to make the sacrifice matter, if only by denting the opponents Armour. 

The interesting thing is that the mindset still engenders a very focused and productive performance.  There is no sense of just fucking around, its more about finding the opportunities to wound the opposition.  Wasting the opportunity is almost the antithesis of the idea, showboating or just going out in a blaze of glory are just different ways to get it over with.  But being determined and focused, while still accepting that no one thinks its going to matter is one step from stupid or just nuts most of the time.  Its similar to the "Failure to disengage" or gamblers fallacy, where they believe they are always just about to win. 

I feel like I have talked myself around in a circle but I still think there is an interesting point of view in there somewhere that applied to sport could give some athletes a way of looking at their performance in ways that they have not yet considered.  

Not quite sure how this mindset works in other area of life.  Most people are not ready to do start tasks that have no obvious chance of success.   Especially not without some alternative value proposition. (Cheer squads, money etc) 

Does make you wonder if this mindset is all around us in the form of people who have done terminally stupid things and written themselves out of history and its really only in the safe space of a sport that we can really observe and celebrate this mindset without the usually lethal consequences. 

Something for the researchers perhaps...