running with the bulls.

I was watching National Geographic one day. This "Discovery" special was on Bloodsports, specifically those relating to animals. The way that the special was structured was that they first did a quick overview on the sport, then had an Oxford-type comment on how barbaric the sport was, how it "fed on humans intrinsic desire to revel in pain and delight in blood, blah, blah."
(It's hillarious to me how a person can become a supposed expert in a field from learning about it mainly from a book. There is no substitute for experience. How can you know of something intimately, without being in it and at some point, being of it?). Then they speak to those who are involved on the sport on a regular basis, whether it be training roosters, or staging the dogfights.

They covered cockfighting and dog fighting, two activities that I have been exposed to at various points in my life. Then the topic moved to bullfighting.

I could never understand how a man could take pleasure in destroying an animal that, with every odd stacked against him, is destined to die. The beauty however, is the animal's desire to live.

In Spain, bullfighting is not considered a sport, much less a "bloodsport". In the newspaper, it is covered in the Arts section. Matadors are treated like top-tier movie stars, and the bulls are regarded with respect beyond that normally reserved for an animal. As they moved passed the overview, and the academic commentary, they moved to talking to those who have cut their lives around this. They interviewed an ancient matador, a bullfighter. He spoke as if knew tomorrow may never come. Words spoken deliberately as if eons had passed in their formation. Asked what would he ask a bull, if he could ask them anything as they were prepared for battle, he replied quite simply:

"Would you rather live as cattle, or die as a bull?"

As men, we are valued for being so through the masculine characteristics we display. We have an intrinsic need to provide for those around us, to be looked up to, to be admired, to protect. When two men enter the room, most of us want to be the man the people look at, because you can only look at one. Women value these characteristic in the men in their lives: they love their daddies because of it, and choose mates (hopefully) based, in part, on it. This desire to
"be a man" stretches far beyond socio-economic boundaries, and in fact is exacerbated by these boundaries that exist in every society. These boundaries give all of us a reference point by which we judge ourselves.

Very few of us in this country are subject to abject poverty, but that matters not.

Poverty in this country is a sense of lacking is those things that those in the socio-economic group we want to belong to have.

All around us, we see how the "other half" lives. We see the houses, the cars. The clothing, all of the outward signs of wealth on display for the world to see. We place importance on this, on attaining social status, on having materials.

All around us, we see the acceptable ways of acheiving this wealth: attending school, getting into college and working hard seems to be the intended path to the promised land of having. The problem is that this path is not in reality feasible for all of us in this society, but the desire to have is still as strong. For a majority of young men that live in urban areas, live in a household whose income barely reaches the poverty level, the traditional means of having isn't feasible.

We tell them to get off the corner. Stop selling drugs. Destroying our communities. Out of the same mouth we tell them to be men, provide. That having a nice car means something. Nice clothes means something. Makes you better than you were before.

No man wants to live as cattle.

These young men in these situations want what all men want, to be men. To be bulls. They want this so badly that they rather live for 15 minutes in on the stage, in the arena, than to live 15 years trolling the pasture, waiting to be slaughtered. They know that in their lives, they are seemingly destined to die, and all we offer them is the mantra of "doing right" and 6.15 a hour and a McDonalds shirt. We offer them a lifetime of mediocrity, and expect them to swallow that oh so bitter pill with a smile. We inherently tell them they are unworthy of being worthy, and wonder why they hit the streets with such vigor. To prove you wrong. We wonder why they buy 100 dollar shirts, and 24'' rims. To buy the worth that you said they couldn't have. Wasn't worth having.

Movies and the media warps our thinking into believing that all these men who hustle are sociopaths, who care about no one, even themselves, and are intent on destroying the free world as we know it. Watching too much New Jack City.

They just want what Bob, the college graduate wants. What the CEO of any corporation wants. What we all want. To have. If we want things to change, we have to offer them something better than the mediocre.

We have to offer them the legitimate chance to live as bulls.