“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love,
@Tikka_BRNO@rbrgre@cikiImiy0r@TheRealJarshy I’m a Spurs fan, born in San Antonio. If you’re ever in the States, you should try to get to a college football game in person. I promise it’ll change your outlook. College>NFL and it’s not close.
@Tikka_BRNO@rbrgre@cikiImiy0r@TheRealJarshy Your statement is too reductive. Please refer to the “nuance” portion of my initial reply. Pre-snap motion, formations, clock management, they’re all poorly understood portions of the game. Every contest matters, and at the college lvl, they play until there’s a winner. No ties.
@cikiImiy0r@rbrgre@TheRealJarshy It’s a game of disciplined aggression, planning, and hard work. If you’re ever in the US, I strongly encourage you to go to a college football game in the autumn or early winter. It’s very exciting.
You can knock us out with 500 goals to 0 in the first game.
We do not care.
We've already won. You won't be able to contemplate how we've won. It's like explaining advance quantum mechanics to a slug. It's simply beyond everything you can quantify.
Heater after heater after heater.
“A man does not ask the fire to be gentler. He only becomes harder to burn.”
Hard to imagine such treasures of wisdom coming from this app.
They made me sign a waiver before the wings arrived.
A paper. To eat. As though courage came with a release form.
The cheerful waiter set the plate down like a man delivering a verdict. "These are the Infernos. Most people tap out. There's milk if you need it."
I looked at the milk. The milk looked back. We understood each other. Neither of us would be needed tonight.
"I will not be requiring the milk," I said.
The first bite arrived like a small sunrise behind the eyes.
(My tongue filed a formal complaint. My eyes opened a second one. I overruled them both.)
A man does not ask the fire to be gentler. He only becomes harder to burn.
I did not reach for water. I did not wave a hand before my mouth. I sat, straight-backed, and ate the Infernos one by one, the way a man receives ten thousand letters of bad news without changing his face.
Beside me, a college boy attempting the same challenge was weeping openly into a napkin. So, between bites, I turned to him and said, calmly, that the fire is not the enemy — the wish for it to stop is the enemy. He stared. Then he picked up another wing.
When the waiter returned, expecting wreckage, he found an empty plate and a samurai sitting in perfect, sweating peace.
"...sir. You want the wall? You're on the wall now. People take a photo."
I rose. I bowed to the plate. I bowed to the kitchen, where unseen hands had forged so worthy a trial.
"Thank you for the fire," I told them.
Then I turned to the room and said, with smoke still somewhere in my soul:
"Comfort teaches a man nothing. Bless the meal that fights back."
The college boy lifted his last wing like a torch. The cook came out to shake my hand. The whole table behind me began, softly, to applaud the strange calm man who had thanked them for the burning.
I walked out into the cool evening, mouth aflame, heart entirely at peace.
A small fire, faced well, is just another way to know you are alive.
A German visiting Auburn, Alabama, to watch Lionel Messi and Argentina play Iceland stopped at a Buc-ee's and ate brisket sandwiches on a stack of deer feeder corn.
A sentence never before uttered in all of human history.
All of America watching Euros rave about Waffle House, Chilis apps, buying Combos at a rural gas station, floating the Chattahoochee, and ranch dressing on the internet: