My Addiction

I was sitting and doing my pre-read for my Consumer Behaviour class, and there was this case about people who are loyal followers of coffee, and I was amazed to think see how coffee can act as a substitute for so many different things to different people; for one person choosing gourmet coffee provided the only variety in life, for another it was the means for social acceptance which she lost because she was a lesbian (I am serious this was present in a B-school case study) and another person received virtually orgasmic pleasure (not mentioned in as many words)by observing the process of espresso coffee being made. And I couldn’t help but think to myself that these guys must be absolute losers, for their lives to revolve around a brand of coffee. And then it just stuck me, that this thought came from a guy who vehemently follows a football club which plays several thousand miles away from my home, whom I have never ever seen play in person, after whom I named my blog, and last night I spoilt my throat shouting at a television, in the hope that my sound waves will cause that tiny ripple (akin to a butterfly’s wings) which will become the cyclone in Rome which causes one of their bitterest rivals to lose a football match (in all fairness it worked as cyclone Barcelona literally blew Manchester United out of the park).  Yes folks, the realisation dawned on me, I too am one of those losers, I too have an insane, unjustified addiction and it’s called Arsenal Football Club.

But I am not the only one, all across the world there are several thousand football fans (and sports fans) who behave like addicts, often driven to anger and violence by their addiction. For instance 200 Barcelona supporters were arrested last night after celebration of their win went violent, this like the delirium of an addiction which causes you to lose control. On the other end of the spectrum, you had the case in Africa, where a bus of Manchester United supporters ran over and killed 4 Barca fans, deliberately. This is a case where the addiction takes you to new levels of despair. Following a football team (or any sports team for that matter) is not only a passion, but can be an addiction. And this post is about that addiction, to an extent and perhaps few other things I can’t classify.

Let me start, the way they do in Alcoholics Anonymous and those other addiction centres, by stating the fact that I am an addict. I am a crazy fan of Arsenal. I have stayed up till 12 30 Am watching Arsenal beat Tottenham Hotspur to win the EPL championship, the day before my 12^th Std board exam. I travelled for 10 hours last month from Coorg, only to be able to watch Arsenal vs Liverpool, I have title my blog in its honour. And I abuse random people I don’t even know, with most profoundly disturbing insults, simply because they are not supporting Arsenal. I guess that should qualify for a mild addiction at least. But there are a lot of people who have such an addiction, at some level or another. So I got to thinking why people support certain football clubs, and I realized that what football club people support seems to reflect a lot on their psychology (just like the coffee study and the brand that the people followed revealed a lot about their life). For instance in my brief experience, I have observed, Arsenal fans, seem to be the most talkative vociferous type, who often like to engage in debates (intellectual or otherwise), they tend to talk a lot and will take you up on an argument on any topic (often also characterized by a strong sense of cynicism and sarcasm). Manchester United fans usually are quieter, and have a sort of silent arrogance (only in matters of football, no offence meant to any Man U fans, what the heck I am an Arsenal fan, all the offence meant), who require serious goading to get into a debate. Delving a bit deeper, why are Arsenal fans like that, or rather why do people with the above mentioned personality support Arsenal? Probably because Arsenal as a team lends itself to a lot of debate and usually such people like to be on the side of the debate which requires a bit more argument. For instance one of the arguments I frequently get into, is why Arsenal are a better football team, and represent the game better than Man Utd, despite the fact that Man Utd are not a bad team (footbalisticly speaking, otherwise they are the pure embodiment of evil) and are far more successful. Also people like us have a very high opinion of ourselves and perceive ourselves to be the ‘intellectual ones’ who are true admirers of beauty and aesthetics, and follow the truly pure brand of football. Man Utd fans on the other hand support the team which exemplifies the notions of ruthlessness and the killer edge, which characterize modern sport and modern society in general. These fans often aspire to have these values, think they have them or simply like to revel in the glory of others who do. Lastly, like any addiction, there is a certain takeaway. Fans who support successful teams, usually do it for the fact that their team’s success gives them solace when things don’t go right for them personally, fans who support their local community’s team do so because it transfers a portion of the feeling of success from their team on to them by virtue of the community connect (unfortunately it is also true for failure, which is why generally fans under this category are the one who react in the most extreme manner) and then there is me. This is where the post gets a little personal.

Why do I support Arsenal? Why do I continue to spend energy in this pointless pursuit (incidentally my one outstanding desire in life is to watch Arsenal play live)? Why have I named my blog after Arsenal, because, Arsenal in a manner of speaking represents the motivation of my blog. I usually tend to write my blog at the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum, either when I am delirious or severely pissed. And Arsenal represents that flip flop between the two extremes. And that is the ultimate answer to the addiction question. Most addictions, like sports teams, coffee brands and even religion, are the desire for the emotional flip flops which sometimes normal life can’t provide. Just to expand a little, a professor of once explained to me how cigarette addiction works. When you smoke cigarettes it releases a hormone which produces chemicals in your brain which give you a ‘high’, and over a course of time that level of chemicals ultimately becomes the normal amount required to maintain mental stability, hence it forms an addiction. Similarly people follow sports teams initially when they need a pick me up or some excitement, and soon it becomes a common place part of their emotional needs. Sports teams not only give us an outlet to express our emotions but often generate them. That’s why Arsenal games (and other football related activity) in addition to other events of my life act as a spur to many of my blogs.

Finally, why this post? A dear friend of mine once said she couldn’t understand why I was crazy about a stupid football team, and wrote angry rants and ridiculous appeals to God because of them. So I started thinking myself and it leads me to some of these conclusions. And at last, you might wonder whether this is an agony blog or an ecstasy blog. Well, Barcelona just hammered the crap out of Manchester United last night, and I spent tonight at a party dancing with some lovely ladies. So what do you think?

Ciao

Note: I am not a trained psychologist or an expert on any human behaviour (except mine), so a lot of these ideas could be just hot air, and the observations are based on my limited observation set. So if I have offended anybody with these generalizations, my sincerest apologies (unless you are a Man Utd Fan). It was probably the fact that I am beginning a course on consumer behaviour tomorrow and this is my mind’s way of doing warm up

My Mind Boggling Adventure

As, the delirium and euphoria of getting into SP Jain just begins to wear out and the fear and paranoia, of how I am going to survive a B-School after 4 years of utter lethargy in VIT during my B.Tech, begins to creep in, I have decided to take a look back at the last 10 months of my life, spent trying to capture the holy grail -admission into a good B-School, which have perhaps been the most harrowing days of my life. Worse than the years before my 10th Board exam when everyone kept telling me how the 1st big exam would shape my life for eternity and beyond, worse than 12th when all I would hear was - " Work hard for few months and the rest of your life will be easy", ya that was one whole load of crap. It was especially harder because after coasting through a B.Tech degree for 3 years, I had to face the unfamiliar task of working hard again (now I know why B-Schools prefer work-ex guys). So here are the basic phases of my MBA (Mind Boggling Adventure), others who have gone through this might be able to associate with it:
Phase I- Starting Line - Utter bewilderment and confusion
This phase involves the whole pre-preparation thing, finding out about the whole B-School process, the myriads of tests, the colleges, the coaching institutes, the test series' and all the other crap that there is. To top it of you find bozos in your college who have been preparing for the past 2 years and all of a sudden your scared out of your wits, wondering whether it isn't already too late. And your TIME and IMS and the ilk dont help either, I mean who the hell starts a 2 year prep course for CAT. Eventually you find a path through the confusion, and decide what need to be done, only to discover the hard part is yet to come.

Phase II - The Marathon or the Sprint (Depending on the path you choose)
This is where all the hard work really kicks in, whether you choose to work for 6 months or 2 years this is the slog fest. And for me it meant weekly shunts from college to home for weekend classes (I couldn't get a crash course in Vellore), 8 hour classes and a rapid succession of practice tests (each one more detrimental to your confidence than the previous). This phase also involves encountering the barrage of applications which you need to fill in order to even write the test. I mean would it kill the B-Schools of this country to subscribe to just one test. Add to that the fact that you have to buy a form for every god damned college means a seriously heavy work load and a significantly lighter pocket. All in all a serious work out prepping you for the big push. Adding spice to this whole scenario, is the whole competitive thing, who's working how hard, and hows the competition like in your vicinity. Again, there are some people who will scare the wits out of you with their hard work, I mean were people like these just put on Planet Earth to make life scarier for the normal people!

Phase III- The Obstacle Course
Well this is crunch time part 1, which decides if you stay in the game or not. This is where you have to go through your various obstacles called, CAT, XAT, SNAP, FMS and any other abbreviation you can find ( pick any 3 or 4 letter abbreviation, the odds are there will be some test in India of that name). And of course as usual we have people trying to complicate things further, strategy, final prep tips, how many pencils to carry to the exam, what breakfast you have on the exam day, to pee before the exam starts, were all things people (mostly belonging to the coaching instis) felt were paramount to your success and the difference between life death (in the B-School Race). I would like to believe that a guy who's going to be earning 10-15 lakhs in2 years time (if all goes well) would know that he needs a extra pencil or two, without somebody having to tell him that. And some how if you manage to keep your head and give a decent shot at the exam, you are obliged to go through those answer keys which come out immediately after the exam, and again no 2 answer keys are ever the same are they. Again its my understanding that if you are taking 20000 from a student you at least make sure you give him a correct answer key. And the worst part is if you fall in one of those neither here nor there categories i.e haven't done phenom ally well, and not bad enough to be completely out of the running, then you begin to sweat it out, desperately waiting for the results, hoping that a particular answer key (the one which gave you a higher score) is right while the others be damned. All in all you are the left to wait doing nothing, and just hoping that your performance in one test doesn't affect the others (like it did to me).This is perhaps the only time i would agree with Morgan Freeman in Shawshank redemption -"Hope can be a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane".

Phase IV- Hurdles
So, if all things go well and you are able to survive all the crap that come before and by some good fortune you are able to get a few good calls, then its time to sit through the hell of GD/PI, not that the experience is in itself that bad (except when you have a 70 yr dude telling you that the you that youngsters like me listening to Rock and Roll are ruining this country's cultural heritage),but its the whole aspect of your future depending on a 15 minute chat with a bunch of men looking to kick your ass (figuratively speaking). And the thing is that unlike a test you never know here you stand (makes you wish they had answer keys for GD/PI too). And it becomes that much worse when you get one reject while preparing for another interview ( I got a SIBM reject before my MDI and IMT interviews), it totally messes with your confidence, its like trying to jump a hurdle and hitting your foot the way down, you're never sure how you will fare with the remaining hurdles. And the sheer volume of thoughts flying through your brain after an interview, about how it went, what went right, what went wrong, where you screwed up, what you could have said, what you should not have said , can drive you absolutely crazy. And then there is the waiting, the damn waiting, keeping your fingers crossed, hoping, praying, checking the net every single day, its absolutely excruciating. But eventually the waiting, the praying, is all worth it when you get an acceptance into a great college, its worth the trouble, its the ultimate prize for surviving this difficult journey. And for some of you who are still fighting on, not having reached their dream, I'll quote form Shawshank Redemption again -"Remember .., hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things".

So why are we put through this hell, I guess it is because its the single toughest course in maturity, learning the hard way, boys to men, call it whatever you will, its the only thing which prepares you for the actual challenge, the really tough adventure, life in a business world which, I'm looking for to with dread and anticipation.
So don't you think the story above justifies the title-mind boggling, and the really scary part is that the ride is just starting!!!