By: Jonathan Seidel
Sunday afternoons, boredom and Football psychosis (Cioran, 23)
Cioran discusses the boredom of Sundays. A day with little to do and more to kick back and relax. Yet this relaxation subsequently evolves into disaster. To compensate for this disaster new religions attempt to ensure the complacency of the day. Something worth living for.
Sunday is the western day off. Church takes priority for believers to rest from a week’s labour. Yet for most it is a day to sleep in and relax. Much of the day is spent fumbling around. Not much productive ambition executed. A startling moment progressively tedious throughout the daylight. No work means freedom. A whole day to enjoy the lavishes of nothingness. Spread eagle in bed with no worries. What a beautiful life. What a serene moment. No need to stumble through the kitchen to work. Pouring two expressos just to stand erect. Waking up up with blue skies instead of the weekly moon howling as it sets. Time to recharge strength lost over the previous work week. Lay in bed and release the tension bottled up. Lightly tiptoe down the stairs and cheerfully making a coffee with little hesitation. Grabbing the television remote turning on the Sunday forecast. Kicking back in the kitchen chair handsomely smiling knowing nothing to worry about.
Morning hours are euphoric. No alarm clocks ringing nor children screaming. No work nor duties. Everything is postponed. Everything is on autopilot. No rush all hush. A day to regather all the nocturnal erosion. Finally enjoying a fruitful slumber. Opening eyes with a smile knowing closing them is recommended. There is no one waiting. Just you and the world. How supreme, a weekly paradise. All is put off to enjoy the moment. The moment of extended rest. Eyes open and there is still much time to chill out. A day that can be focused on family and friends. A day that more attention to others is expanded. Freedom encircling familial elements. First gain all the energy lost and then focus it on those most precious. A defying metric that is most unfortunately repressed through the week. Work allocates most of the waking hours. Mind busy with business overtakes the simple attention to family. Sunday makes up for it, designates time for it and cherishes it.
Christians outlawed Sunday work. Most attended church and spent their time with family. Most stores are closed, forced to stay with family. Sunday in the the early modern west was the equivalent of Jewish Sabbath. Most people worshipped and spent the rest of the day amongst family. Similarly to this day Jews do the same. The technological boom decline of religiosity and expanded multiculturalism has undermined the initial intent but it is still very much alive. Devout Christians see Sunday as a day of collective unity just as Jews see the Sabbath as such. There isn’t much to do other than be with family. Stores are and businesses are closed. The focus is inward. In NJ the blue laws prohibiting shops from opening is directly correlated with Sunday rest. In Israel, there are religious communities that close all shops and cars from driving on the street. Christians do not have the same anti-electricity laws that Jews have but the lack of labour excess, redirects to familial excess.
Sunday has evolved. Puritan communities were quite ‘halakically’ stringent than other western counterparts but the similarities are strong. Yet in the same vein, as commercialism become more rampant and societies more democratically diverse, Sunday needed a new notion. Democracies were no longer strictly Christian countries but maybe the religious were onto something. They’re evidently some religious lingering for the continuous theme. In muslim countries, work is from Sunday through Thursday with the last two days as the workless weekend. Democracies regulated it to be a day off from work than a religious crusade. Sunday paper and Sunday sports became tokens of a sacrilege Sunday. A propagandised Sunday to appeal to the public beyond the religious lacing. Whether this was Christian induced is irrelevant, keeping a day off with new fervour made it into the western conscience. Even familial elements extended with each member finding a section in the newspaper designated for themselves to read.
Rising secularism is obviously a rationale for the changing trend. No church meant, new ways for familial collusion. Religion is the sole way of family connection. Without it families will tear apart. Thus the Sunday paper was born. A way of bringing the family together on the day off. A paper everyone can read. One with little religious tracing. One that enveloped all households. Passing out various sections to each other family members. Usually, everyone would be out of the house in the waking hours but a full house is present nearing midday. Constructive associations is the attendance at the kitchen table for pancakes and orange juice. Everyone receives their food and paper. Each is in their own world but together. A good start to refining familial unity. Tradition rapidly repeats itself. Every week the same breakfast scenario rears its head. The family responds happily rested and exuberant to spend quality time surrounded by affection.
Mornings were only a start. While the newspaper tradition ceased in many households given the invention of television, the latter further cemented the significance. Sunday was a household day with household programs. Many of the best shows were aired on Sundays. The most watched night for Americans. There is no work no concern, simply bliss on the television. All those familial elements displayed in the series observed from the living room. As technology has advanced the criteria has blossomed. Even if the newspaper isn’t the most well received by younger generations, Sunday television produces a selective time to enjoy. Many kids can’t watch television during the week, their favourite shows were shown on Sundays so the numbers would be higher. A day of rest and tedious enjoyment. A morning of flavour and fantasising. Away from the corporate deals and the colossal anxiety. The morning for both parents and children is breezy.
Lazy days are felt in the morning. Yet by the afternoon boredom reacts. Now what? Slept in watched favourite television series, there isn’t more to do. Genius idea, sports Sunday. All afternoon whether it be football in the fall, basketball (hockey) in the winter and baseball in the summer. Waiting every week to watch your favourite sport’s team. Even if they play during the week, Sunday is a different atmosphere. Especially for basketball and baseball, Sunday games are primetime. Once television became central after WWII, a decade later Sunday afternoon baseball became a brand. A few games were telecasted nationally. Even without the nationally televised game for fun, local teams were played on television and radio. People would tune in Sunday afternoon to watch and listen to their teams battle it out. Weekly games did not hold the same communal attention nor stadium attendance that Sunday games did. To this day, a Sunday Yankee game will cause such tumultuous traffic.
Football is most iconically aligned with Sunday afternoon. No sport garners as much attention as American Football on a Sunday by Americans obviously. A day of serenity culminating in a the most watched sport in the nation. A sport people spend hours prior to the game rejoicing in the stadium parking lot. Grilling and drinking in a fun collective unit. Only then to enter the stadium for the game. Many at home sit around their families with snacks and drinks rooting for their heroes to victory. An afternoon spoiled on men bashing their heads into one another akin to the periodic gladiator fights in Rome that produced incredible audiences to spectate. The sheer passion of the sport and identification with the hometown team imbibes a deep link to others in town. Football covers much of the afternoon and evening if attended the stadium. Boosting the Sunday experience with more familial adventures. Repetitive but fun programs. Sitting around no worries just plain enjoyment with loved ones.
Sunday evening has notoriously the best television programs. On the brink of returning to work, there is one more gift to the break. Tuning in with the highest attendance is truly remarkable. Through the night the family then the parents sit back and enjoy the shows. Lingering to their last moments of liberation before they have to return to work the following morning. A bona fide testament to the tradition. That this show on Sunday night is important. In the past it was the show that could be watched. Now people watch all the time. Yet popularity is condensed into one night to signal this is an important show. You may watch throughout the week but this is good television. Spend the last moments of freedom watching this show. Most competition in one night garners the best shows. 60 minutes and The Simpsons were on for years. Familial shows uniting the family before everyone returns to their separate ways Monday morning. It is no shock the Super Bowl the most familial event is televised Sunday night for all families to enjoy together.
Many times the long workless day is not pure rest but a day to put life in order. A day for logistical merits. Some areas still retain their old religious laws but many open up stores for a limited time. Allowing shop owners to rest as well as enable free layers to get what needs to get done. In the army, a weekend off meant two things: rest and recuperate. Having an elongated rest and organising stuff. Extra time was devoted to extending rest time. Recuperation was a day away from base. Yet the extended rest was temporary. As time grew closer to return to base those moments were maximised. Mornings and evenings produced the most cheerful element of television saturation. It was the middle of the day with so much time that the feeling wasn’t there. The morning was feeling rested while the evening was holding fast to liberation. Television specials to just salvage the last moments. The middle of the day was a desert of uncertainty. Rested yet not yearning. A weird middle ground that found solace in football only a quarter of the year.
Sunday paper, football and television are all spectacles. They hide the sparking tedious nature of a day off. Once one is rested, then what. There is nothing. Honestly a lazy opening would do wonders for people. Sunday maybe irrelevant if two days a week work began a few hours later or in the afternoon. There is a traditional excess that does conquer the tedious level of asymmetry. Yet even if the goal is family unity there isn't much, it is quite forced especially with football. Sundays are no way like Saturdays. Saturday for Jews is premodern. There is no exertion no electricity. There are morning ceremonial events that do capture the insensitive boredom to follow. The creation of board games are definitely only still in stock due to Orthodox Jews. Synagogue followed by lunch takes up much of the morning but the afternoon is long. Board games are collective and take up the time of the unable to do anything on the Sabbath. It is therefore not ironic that Jews love Sundays so they can have one day they can’t do anything and then one day then can do everything.
Even with electronic use, mindlessly watching television all morning is boring. By midday a new curiosity is necessary. Football pulls that naivety into the wake of communal attention. All afternoon the community rallies around the home team. This occurs with all sports but football is significant in its sole Sunday game. Can’t miss a game, there are only sixteen. A religious aura surrounds the game and the vision. Yet it is an entirely a spectacle for the public to salvage their boredom. Sports are fun but why do people watch them. Some people like watching some sports and not others, there is no objective matrix to this. In turn, it is the level of commitment to the spectacle. The players love to play but the crowd drawn by the action is driven into the passion. The game becomes a virtual reality of sorts. The audience cheers and jeers feeling the impression that imprint on the game. Surrounded by others who feel the same jolly intensity beers drank hot dogs eaten with mouthful watery screaming. It is a matter of engulfed in the experience of something bigger. More than family its nationhood.
For Jews, Sunday works since only Sunday is a day to be mobile but for others the two day weekend does spoil the rest. One day rest is sufficient, two days may be overblown. Sunday traditions are necessary to keeping the connection alive. The heteronomous pull of Sunday affiliations reinvigorates the recuperated worker to stay another day. Saturday was a day off. Unlike Muslim and Jewish countries were Friday is a day of preparation. A short day especially for Jews. Saturday is equally workless to Sunday. The lingering significance is to the rituals perpetuated through the years. Recently adding Saturday football games undermined much of the professional heart but this is not the same for college football teams. If anything, the presence of college football on Saturday only epitomes the two day workless week. Football is on consecutive days. There is the college game and then the pro game. Both have tailgates and fans from all over the area tuning in. Both afternoons are covered. There is no need to worry about boredom, it is electrified and enjoyed.
Football season is only a quarter of the year. Sunday afternoons return to their lacklustre absurdity. There are other games and sometimes they provide the same enjoyment but nothing transcends the gladiator in the ring. Nothing beats the mid-afternoon boredom. That is when the best games are happening. Just as the high noon reaches its peak performance. A necessary distraction from the tedious day. Football is the catalyst for familial bonding. For attention seeking and roughhousing enjoyment. Once the morning has passed there isn’t much else left to do escape wait for the following day to arrive. Mixed feelings rumble internally. Bored of the fluid nothingness of the day is saved by millions of fans cheering for their hometown hero. Yelling at the television for a linebacker to make a tackle. The excitement and non-complacency heightens the excessive exertion in a different direction than usual.
While there are instances of Saturday night hangovers and expensive dinners, Sunday miserableness transcends these two childish actions. It is less what had been hours prior and more what will happen in the coming hours. Anxiety of work is diminishing. Looming overhead as the hours dwindle. It marks a greyish cartoon show. People walking around sad faces pouncing on their terrible qualms. Finally have time reflect and ponder the guilty conscience. Lazily slobbering around. Uncertain of what the week has in store. Distress fills the atmosphere a void unable to be fixed. A day of liberation is filled with depression. How is that turned upside down. With Football. Football saves. Exploited enjoyment. Coercive fan fiction energises the self. Those waking hours saved by immersive elements. Don’t worry about the bills, watch football. Cheer on the gladiator and all will be well. Instead of attending service reminding of all the bad, distract with live theatre surrounded by hooligans.
A day off is granted. So liberated and yet so torturous. If not for these spectacles, insanity would rise immensely. Cioran is correct about the boredom psychosis but thank god for football. At least it carries us through the Sundays. That devilish afternoon is conquered and sensations are solely positive. The torture chamber surpassed with a distracted art.
