Cal Sucks: The End of False Hope

Cal sucks.

It’s taken me almost thirty years of fandom to accept this obvious reality.

Cal sucks.  When it comes to major athletics – football and Men’s basketball – Cal simply sucks.  Thoroughly and consistently.  And it’s not going to change.

In the thirty years I’ve actively followed Cal football, Cal has posted losing records in the large majority of those years.  That’s sucking.  And they’ve made the NCAA tournament in men’s basketball just a handful of time.  Again, that’s flat-out sucking.

But it’s so much worse than that.  Over those thirty years (far more if one goes into history), Cal has had THREE football seasons that would be considered “good” (10 win seasons).  And in each of those 10-win seasons, that’s ALL the wins they got. Even the few years Cal is good, they suck.  Over those thirty years Cal has made it to the Sweet Sixteen TWICE, losing handily both times once they got there. 

Of the football seasons where Cal had a winning season (not many), the huge majority of those season were BARELY winning season – 8 wins or less.  So top to bottom, the football team sucks.

The teams land talent.  The NFL is full of players who went to Cal – some doing quite well, and a lot better than they ever did at Cal.  The NBA has former Cal players. Yet even with talent, Cal football and men’s basketball programs – just suck.  It’s cultural, it’s in the programs’ DNA.  And it’ll never change.

Now, this is fine if one accepts the obvious historical realities and enjoys the programs for what they are – mildly entertaining but never going to win many games.  They’re loveable losers, and only loveable if a fan fully accepts that the teams are and always will be losers. 

Cal had Jason Kidd on the basketball team and won exactly TWO NCAA tourney games during his entire career.  Cal had Aaron Rodgers as QB and Marshawn Lynch as RB – ON THE SAME TEAM - and had ONE 10-win season, where they lost to Texas Tech in a middling bowl game, during that time.  Those players had far more success at the professional level than the collegiate level because CAL SUCKS.

Jared Goff was a Cal QB who went #1 in the draft – after a 14-23 career at Cal.  In other words, the NFL has COMPLETELY DISCOUNTED the fact that Cal football just FLAT-OUT-SUCKS, no matter what kind of talent is on the team.  (And this has proven to be justified, as Goff has gone on to do well in the NFL, while Cal football… continues to suck.)

And it’s just the way it is.  Thirty years is a more than adequate sample size – lots of different Chancellors, Athletic Directors, coaches, even a new stadium.  Guess what stayed the same?  The suck. 

I don’t bring this up to pile on Cal.  Okay, maybe a little.  Cal has been losing at football and men’s basketball for over sixty years.  (Yes, Cal got one NCAA tourney championship – under a coach who promptly left and did the same thing at a neighboring school which also sucks at basketball.)  Even the one year in the 50s when Cal got to the Rose Bowl they sucked – it just so happened all the good teams were hit with sanctions at the same time, so Cal backed in – and then got their asses kicked in the Rose Bowl.  Because even back then, they sucked.

This is a school that insists on keeping a mascot that looks like a carpet sample the dog used as a diarrhea toilet for thirty years, because it’s “tradition.” And whose fans think said mascot is cool enough that they can disparage Stanford’s tree mascot.  In truth, Stanford has a hideous mascot, but when our mascot looks and smells like a turd with a sweater and clown shoes, we Cal fans should really be quiet when it comes to mascots.  Colorado, Air Force, Texas have AWESOME mascots Cal fan complain about while Cal has a walking rape practice dummy dragged in from People's Park.  And when our major teams play like said smelly turds in good years, and said rape dummies in the other years (hello, Wyking Jones and Sonny Dykes), we Cal fans shouldn’t be disparaging anyone about, well, anything.

All of this is a long way of saying I’ve been a stupid, delusional person when it’s come to Cal football and basketball.  A stupid, delusional person who for thirty years (well, a little less) believed THINGS WOULD CHANGE.  All the years of losing, of mediocre wins, of just plain sucking, and I’d believe a bright future was just around the corner. 

Every winning season was just a ripple in a sea of losing.  But THIS winning season would be different.  THIS YEAR would be different.  That’s not Cal, that’s me.  As much as Cal has sucked, I’ve sucked worse.

Well, I’m done sucking.  I’m doing what I should have done years ago – giving up on Cal.  That is, giving up on my delusional fantasy that Cal would ever be anything other than… Cal.  Cal will always be Cal.  And as such, Cal will always suck.  History doesn’t lie.  Reality doesn’t lie.  Self-delusion and false hope lies all day long. 

I regret the energy I put into something so stupid that sucked so badly for so long.  Really regret it.  I was an idiot.  It’s a testament to the power of hope, but also a cautionary tale about the power of self-delusion.

That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy watching a game.  College football is fun.  Just don’t expect anything.  Because whether they win or lose that game, Cal will still suck.  No point in fighting it.

I can’t take back all the energy and stress wasted over something so stupid that amounted to nothing.  Even investing that much energy in a team that regularly wins is stupid, but at least USC fans can point to a tradition of winning to justify a meaningless existence.  I just have time and energy I’ll never get back.

I also have a lesson.  A lesson in both the power and danger of hope.  Hope can keep one going a long time.  It can keep one’s spirits up when things are bad.  And that’s a good thing.  But hope can also keep one from changing.  I look at the energy I wasted on Cal football and think “what if I had come to this place earlier in life?” 

I would have had to look at my time and find better things to do.  Which would have led me to look at a lot of other unhealthy things I was doing that I was ignoring while I obsessed over sucky sports teams.  It took me a long time to find a good place, and most of the big positive changes I made came after I began to accept that my hope in Cal athletics was misplaced and it was time to take action in my life. 

Optimism is great, but false hope is nothing but a drug.  Clear vision is important.  See what is working well, what needs work and what just flat-out sucks.  And determine what can be improved and what can’t.  And if you can’t improve it, cut out the things that suck.  Even if you’ve been holding on to them for years.  Especially if you have.

Because a tradition of holding on to things that suck that you cannot change… well, it sucks.  Cal sucks.

Some Basic "Spiritual Ground Rules"

Some people might be confused by my Twitter posts.  I like to troll.  Not mean-spirited trolling, just adding to the silliness of the “news” that’s out there.

Truth is, politics doesn’t bother me.  It’s amusing, it’s annoying, but it’s largely irrelevant from my daily life and completely irrelevant from my higher purpose.  All this “discussion” about feminism, #metoo, Black Lives Matter, it’s all just mindless entertainment.  None of it matters in the higher scheme of things.

That being said, I sometimes feel the need to put warning labels out there, lest people who follow me get the wrong impression or drink the poison.  So let me put this out there clearly – ego-based stuff only leads to problems.  You cannot resolve your ego problems with more ego, they can only be resolved at a higher energy source.

In other words, arguing over politics and pointless social theories will not bring you an ounce of happiness, much less guide you to your higher purpose.

There.  You’ve been warned.

For me this is such an essential element of my life that I forget this is a truth where few people live. And thus my Tweets could be dangerously misleading instead of mindless entertainment or education-through-shock-value.  I engage in political debate as a social exercise.  Yes, I have opinions.  No, they don’t mean anything, but sometimes they can be a way to connect and interact with people I would not otherwise meet.  Which can be interesting, or at least diverting.

It’s not who I am.  It’s not my mission.

In fact, I’ve made a point of disavowing “self-help leaders” who have strayed from spiritual truth into the ego of politics and social controversies.  Destin Gerek used to be one of the most embodied, spiritually-based “self-help” people I knew.  Deep down I believe he still is.  But there’s no denying his public message and coaching modality has shifted into the ego-based.  He sees the media and claims these are real problems – he’s internalizing things that aren’t his to internalize.  He’s engaging in very base ego-based argument and social media mob stuff.

That isn’t embodied growth.  It’s ego-based bullshit. It wouldn’t matter if it was just My Buddy Destin, one of many guys who say some things I agree and disagree with.  But in the past he’s helped men to resolve their ego-based problems with identity and connection at a higher level – which is why I supported him.  Now, he’s lost in the ego stuff and I have to wait for him to either come back to the higher level or not on his own time.

This is one example.  It seems the election of Donald Trump has thrown many people who were struggling to operate above the ego right back into the pit of egoic patterns.  This is what happens when catalysts come along – people who have weak spiritual grounding come crashing down.

But I’ve gone on and on enough about people who are falling or the chaos caused by the increase in the vibrational energy (of which Trump is just a symptom).  I want to step back and set out some basic truths, the basic warnings and guideposts you need to get through all this.  Then maybe you’ll understand where my silly Tweets and political trolling posts come from.  And more importantly, where you need to be going in all this.

Bottom line, the essence of our spiritual journey is a simple question:  Am I serving Source, or Self?

That’s basically it.  Eckart Tolle talks about dissolving Ego to get rid of pain and feel better.  Because, from a spiritual standing, Tolle is full of shit.  This isn’t about “feeling better,” that’s an ego-based outcome.

So let me back up and give you another fundamental foundational truth:

Your problems can only be resolved at levels above the problem.

What this means is all your ego-based problems cannot be resolved through more ego.  You can’t argue your way out of your problems, or analyze your way out, or self-pleasure your way out.  More money, more things, more ego-based connections, more pleasurable diversions, these will not resolve the fundamental sufferings of the ego.  They’ll only add to them.

However, Tolle is right in that letting go of the ego from a higher level WILL resolve the ego problems.  But doing so to simply “get rid of suffering” will only bring you right back into suffering.  “YAY, my ego is dissolved – OH CRAP! It came back.”  And you’ll be on that up-and-down ride forever.

Another foundational truth:  

People who are on their spiritual path are fundamentally happy, precisely because they are pursuing something above the level of happiness.  

Happiness is not joy, it’s not a state of being, it’s a lifestyle choice.  It comes when one has moved past ego-based living and is living at a higher level.  And at that level, happiness comes naturally.

If all you care about is pursuing joy through experiences, you will find some joy and long periods of longing for joy.  That’s ego.  If you are dead-set on avoiding pain, you’ll experience some non-pain and long periods of pain.  This is how desire works.  The absence of ego means the absence of that kind of desire.  You’ll still experience joy, pain, pleasure, sadness and everything in between, but without the judgment or longing for things to be a certain way.  You accept your temporal states of being as such in the present moment, and can do so with an underlying sense of calm and higher purpose.  And that underlying sense is what I refer to as “happiness.”

Happiness is really just a higher state of living, above the ego state.  It’s a requirement for those on serious spiritual paths.  You’ll notice all the more evolved spiritual people are naturally happy, even in their suffering.  Because they’re living outside their ego.

From this place, ego-based arguments and such (everything on Twitter) is irrelevant to one’s life.  The news media means nothing.  Politics – meh.  It’s entertainment, it’s a diversion. It’s annoying at times.  It also is an access point to see the truer nature of people it serves to “unmask” people who hide under masks.

And that hiding under masks is something a lot of coaches do.  I don’t mean to pick on Destin, but seeing him fall back into ego patterns has me question whether his “higher coaching self” was just a mask that I bought into so heavily I made it a reality for me.  I don’t think so, but time will tell.

The thing is, wherever you are in your spiritual journey, the ego is still going to snare you from time to time.  Sometimes I feel tired and stressed.  Sometimes I feel lonely.  Sometimes I feel angry, or sick, or experience physical pain.  Sometimes I’m enjoying sensory experiences and lose presence.  Sometimes I fall into habit or argue or whatever.  We all do. 

The difference for me is I’ve trained myself to operate at higher levels.  So I know how to get myself back there.  I catch myself and can do things to realign my energy.  But I’ve had years and years of training and practice at pretty high levels – something most people haven’t had.

That’s not me being prideful, it’s just the reality.  An untrained person seeking spiritual development might find some of the things I say and do to be downright unhelpful or dangerous.  So again, always go back to the basic question: “Am I serving Source or Self?”  

Also learn muscle testing or pendulum testing to ascertain the higher truth of things. 

Never take anyone’s word on things ever.  Because even the most well-meaning people operating at the highest levels slip up, and you don’t want to get snagged in their net.

I’ve pointed out a lot of the BS out there, and I’ll continue to do so.  Consider this the very basic ground rules for spiritual development. And keep in mind your service to Source is going to look far different than mine or anyone else’s.  (Take a gander at Etienne’s blog and what he’s being called to do – it’s pretty “out there” compared to what most of us are being asked to do.)  I think it’s important to keep in mind, as much BS as I point out, there’s plenty of it right here coming from me or anyone else. 

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “Don’t follow leaders.”  

If you’re serious about spiritual development, you need to step up and be your own spiritual leader or you’ll end up back in the bucket with the other crabs “searching” for the rest of your life, and who knows how many lives after that.

Hope this helps, and don’t take my Tweets too seriously.  I don’t.