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In the West, rationale, reason, logic, and utility rules. Things and people are measured; quantified; judged; categorized; admired or commoditized – yet, worse disarded. The ends are to ensure maximum benefit for minimal loss, risk, or threat. Investment / portfolio managers and actuaries instruct clients on life expectancy, or on net worth. A boxer may be worth $100 million – with financial planners taking advantage of tax efficient strategies, that lead the sports star to donate $1 million in order to reduce taxable income. Advisors invest this wealth and take advantage of compound interest.
The Judeo-Christian tradition has made way for the Capitalistic / Materialistic / Egocentric paradigm. It has its own software, commanding the pursuit of pleasure, gratification, self-indulgence. Presentism: “life is now – live it up.” Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
The operating system is pervasive and most persuasive. Old notions of temptations are discarded as lies spread by ancient mystics – who perhaps were bent on mind control over the populace. Zealots. Manipulators. Floyd has limitless access to the famous, the beautiful, and royal settings. Material wealth and social standing is the benchmark for idolatry, the standard by which a commoditized person-worker is made superior or inferior. Actually, worker is an appropriate label, not person. And preferably not human being. Worker, commodity, metrics. Watcha got? Micro-values and macro-hypnosis have created a “soup consciousness” of commercials, beliefs, and reinforced system of hyper-consumption: you don’t have money, fancy cars, gorgeous dates, the latest gadgets? You are STUPID. WORTHLESS. IRRELEVANT.
Floyd has defeated (and embarrassed ? i.e., Arturo Gatti) the vast majority of his opponents, with ease. He is in command – fans chase what he has, just as boxing opponents attempt to catch up to his ring generalship. The master dictates the fight, he views matches as less and less of a challenge.
Such mastery is the culmination of an entire lifetime of top-tier training – eliteness by which Floyd has accepted, and endured, the harshness of perfection’s code and demands: father Floyd Mayweather, Sr. was a welterweight contender. Uncles Jeff and Roger Mayweather were once world boxing champions. Floyd is the unquestioned champion of the boxing craft. He is untested. Fans have clamored, to no avail, for contests with compelling adversity, such as involving welterweights Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito, and / or Paul Williams.
– Manny is the unquestioned battle-scarred veteran. His seek-and-destroy attacks leave opportunity and openings for a gifted athlete / boxer. –
In 2008, Floyd retired with a perfect 39-0 record. He has clung to his undefeated status – unwilling to let go. Ego clings – clings to youth, advantage, prestige. Ego has a lot to lose. He has held tightly to this perfect record at the risk of a diminished stature in boxing’s all-time pantheon. At all cost Floyd protects and defends his exceptionalism in the boxing world. He is the defensive boxing master who lives out this strategy. In facing elite opponents, even the best fighters are supposed to lose over the long-run. “Why be like everyone else? I am different. There is an elevated standard no one else can touch. I am the exception.”
This preference jibes with American Exceptionalism – a geo-political paradigm regarding America’s niche and unusual uniqueness in credo, values, resource and population composite, history and origins, economic and military prowess, and destiny. The Capitalistic / Materialistic / Egocentric software – which may not be applicable in the Far East – dresses omnipotent Stature and Success in such parameters as to allow Floyd to wear its golden robes.
According to Campbell: The Hero IS. I AM. Not I want to be. Not I am trying. I AM. The best IS Floyd. I AM Floyd. The Exception. No one else. The Exception in the heartland of American Exceptionalism.
Primitive, barbaric, pre-historic, neanderthal, caveman, ancient, mystic views of (inferior) man is replaced. Advances, material progress, Western might validate the ego as desiring justified, superior ends. “The fact the system works makes it the right system, the correct system, for all.” The ancient is bondage for man, a hypnosis of a dream world. Animism is obsolete. Man who worships animals, the sky, Mother Nature is not Man. He is Brute. The Matrix’s rules apply not to Neo. The Capitalistic / Materialistic / Egocentric operating system – Floyd’s representation of the Ego – the towering symbolism, shatters the ancient – the obsolete.
He holds up a broken mirror for observers – and what you find is a shattered Judeo-Christian tradition – evolved from agricultural societies over thousands of years. He has violated – or decimated – the (previously?) universally accepted trajectory, the template for all Men: life, death, resurrection / rebirth. I am the exception – there is no death, there is no loss. There is exceptionalism – 39 – 0. No death, no failure. No loss, no rebirth. I have reached a threshold others have not – in the boxing universe, I am the king of kings. In the West, money talks. BS walks. Success and failure is a zero-sum equation. Its citizens have no choice – they live under an operating system that accepts no other modus operandi. It humiliates.
In a hyper-competitive setting, of which Floyd is a brand / enterprise in the capitalistic marketplace, you can only push yourself. Pride, ego drives the best to the brink. Apotheosis comes from mentality, from flesh reaching a point, a limit, no other competitor has. Apotheosis – a breakthrough expansion in consciousness – born of taxing the flesh and spirit, effecting supremacy in performance expands the Ego into infinite dimensions. The results break world feats and world records. The West regards such cultivation as the rational progression of Man reaching his potential in this human epoch.
Its songs, its values, cultivate the striving – for self – for success – for worldly recognition.
As conveyed in Rick Ross’ “Push It:”
Port of Miami Importing the candy Ain’t got nothing to lose I’m just supporting my family
(push it to the limit)
Never traffic for fun Only traffic for funds All i seen is the struggle Its like im trapped in this slum
(push it to the limit)
N* were badly paid
No water we barely bathed Better be better days on the way Thats on my daddy grave
(push it to the limit)
Im pushing the hard Im pushing the soft If he pushin the white He pushin for Ross
I waited and waited (waited) I dun’ ran outta patience They hated and hated Left ’em slow dancing with satin
(push it to the limit)
Rick Ross “Push It” (Instrumental) – Port of Miami – Def Jam
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
