Swimming Carnival

It may be news to some of you that I don't actually go in for the whole "Swimming Carnival" thing.

I say some of you because saying I have precisely one reader is soul-crushing. Anyway, Quoc, let me walk you through my day.

This morning, I needed to find something “Macarthury,” "Festive," and "Mexican" to wear, to show house spirit, to belong and to have fun. So I got my spare pillow case - the only yellow thing I own - and I cut holes in it. I wore a white shirt underneath. I was going as a sort of Mexican Hobo. Sorta. Kinda. I accept that maybe a perforated pillow-case probably was the most pathetic attempt at anything ever. ANYWAY. So dressed, I went towards the Swimming carnival. Then I turned right around and walked away. This, as you will see, was a good decision.

Beating of Drums. Chanting of warcries. "Music" playing over the loudspeakers. It was furious and frenzied and fearsomely loud. A cacophony of sound; a monument to horrible. The grating sound of Lady Gargle and Akorn graced our ears while the men dressed up like women and the women didn’t dress. It was a bloated, pseudo-fascist, vapid, hateful, mindless tribute to the concept of noise. It was awe-inspiringly awful in every conceivable aspect.

Yeah, fuck that.

I went to the library to pick up my newspaper, but found the office's air-conditioning a handy substitute instead. I got out my Belonging text - Robinson Crusoe, published 1705, and relaxed in the quiet. For a 305 year old book, it actually isn’t bad. Once you get used to the language, which is a century away from Shakespearean, it is a gripping and intelligent book – surprisingly fun to read.

Soon enough, they asked me to find someone to volunteer themselves as Office Duty person. So, instead of reading my Belonging text, I ran around all morning, telling teachers whose students are all at the Swimming Carnival that their students are all at the Swimming Carnival. Which, I guess, is good to know. I had conversations with the bored, student-less teachers, and generally took longer than necessary to do the rounds.

Then, after 45 minutes of that, the Science Prep lady asked me to conscript 7-10 volunteers to carry some boxes around. And by boxes, she meant boxes full of heavy textbooks, and by heavy textbooks, she meant three successive science syllabus updates - some 500 tomes, stretching in publishing date from 1968 to 1997. All those obsolete textbooks had been stockpiled in the one overflowing storeroom in case of a rainy day. A rainy day that had arrived.

Our rainy day was that our storeroom was full of books stored in case of a rainy day, and all that stuff needed to be moved. But the rainy day in question in fact belonged to a group of Haitian Secondary students, as their textbooks were destroyed in the Earthquake. So instead of deafening and muting myself at the swimming Carnival, I helped children in a disaster-devastated third world country get a proper education. I had fun doing it too. That might sound like an aside, but it isn’t. We’ll get back to it in a moment.

The conscripts I found were boys somewhere between year 8 and year 10. I could have sworn that they were cross-gendered girls, however, because instead of speaking "English," they spoke the international language of "Whiny Bitch". My good GOD they were annoying. First they complained about having to carry the books. Then, five minutes later, they wanted a break. Then they had to carry stuff to the bins. They picked up the stuff and took it to the bins, but after 10 minutes, they hadn't returned. We found them sitting on the steps outside, complaining that they didn't know where the bins were. They didn't ask, either. Apparently, their tactic was to turn a half hour long job into a four hour long job and then get excused by the home bell. MUUCH less effort that way.

In the meanwhile, I was busting my back filling the boxes of stuff, a somewhat more difficult job than carrying them, because I was constantly half bent over in a dingy, dusty storeroom that managed to be both hotter and more humid than outside. But because it was the swimming carnival, I had a modest deal of fun filling doing it.

Finally, I got a moments rest. It was after lunch now, and I just wanted to sit down and read my book. Two people came in to lambast me for not having fun. Their arguments:

1: You’re not supporting your house

2: You’re not having fun

3: This is your last swimming carnival, make it a good one

I was annoyed, and refused. They asked me why not, and I couldn’t properly answer. Now, I can, so now, I am going to counter all these points in turn.

1: You’re not supporting your house.

Let’s be clear about this. In year 7, your name is randomly put onto a roll for a house. You are then expected to be loyal to your house for the rest of your years at your school, hurling abuse on the other houses and showing “spirit” and “cheer.” Damaging vocal cords, ears, empty bins with sticks, the precarious wooden stands, the roof, each other, and the integrity and dignity of everyone present in the process. But a roll of the die would have you in the other house. Explain: what is the point?

In the long run, every house will have its time in the sun, because statistically speaking, it is almost certain that one house will be gifted with high quality swimmers and athletes at some moment in its history. No house is better than any other, because a house is composed of its members, and its members have a six year turn-over rate. Explain: why should I care?

This is not just nationalism or patriotism on a small scale, because countries can build on the work of their predecessors. It is the nature of sport that the great will shine but briefly, leaving nothing to history but higher records to beat. It is totally arbitrary, it is totally random, it is totally illogical. You can’t say that your house is the best because in five to ten years, your house WILL be the worst. The longest winning streak in our school history was the seven year streak of Macarthur, a house that is now well on the downslide. The problem I have with it is that it is objectively absurd to support a team whose accomplishments are as dust on the breeze. Individual swimmers break records, not houses. It is the individual I should support, regardless of clothing colour. Individuals make accomplishments, but we support collectives. That is one problem.

The other problem I have with it is that it is a sign of worse things than a harmless competition between high school students. What’s the difference between hating someone for being Red and hating someone for being black? Even jokingly? What would happen if people jokingly proclaimed supremacy over a real group instead of an arbitrary one? Especially if you think about it - the idea of nation states is just as arbitrary as school sporting groups. ‘That side of the river is Dictatorshipland. This side of the river is Freedomtopia. We don’t like the Dictatorshiplanders because of their vastly inferior swimming ability.’ Perhaps not the best example, but not entirely inaccurate either.

The whole thing reminds me of the Nuremburg rallies. Or Oceania’s hate week. Impress everyone with the flashy colours and the catchy chants and the damn NOISE and everyone will forget about their troubles, belong to a group and have fun.

Because, when boiled down to essentials, that is what the swimming carnival is about. It is fun to belong. It is human nature and human instinct to belong, to be part of something greater than yourself – even just for one day; even just to watch the swimming, or – on a larger, more world-applicable scale – sports in general. It is fun to lose a part of yourself and parrot the collective, because decisions are no longer your responsibility. The same group-love that makes Swimming Carnivals fun is the same vibe at the root of dance parties, protests, football games, and so on. Hundreds of mouths, singing in unison; hundreds of feet, dancing to the same rhythm; hundreds of people wishing for the same thing; hundreds of hearts, beating as one.

I both envy that and despise it. I cannot belong to collectives, and I have only a few times in my life truly let go of the individual and become part of a group. Because of that, I hate swimming carnivals, dance parties, football games and all their kind, and I hate being told that to not enjoy them is wrong, because I literally cannot have fun at those events. If anything, I feel an intense wrongness about the whole thing. Even when – especially when – I get involved in things, I seem to separate from everything, my mind turns inwards. Music becomes noise. Colours and lights become intense, burning, blinding. I become intensely miserable and cannot wait for the damn mess to be over and done with.

And so I avoid them, and have my own fun. Right about that time they say…

2: You’re not having fun

Of course, it never matters whether or not I AM having fun when this point is raised, because it isn’t about me at all. What they are always really saying is that I’m not having THEIR KIND of fun. Reading quietly is and can be fun. It’s a kind of fun that I’ve gotten out of the habit of having, mainly due to boarding school and the internet. It is a fun that I should be having more of, especially if I want to make a career out of being a writer.

But it is a quiet fun, and, as some people would sub-consciously argue, if there isn’t a lot of noise, you aren’t having fun. Fun should be an assault on ALL the senses: a battering ram to the brain. Come on, Brendan, stop being boring and useless and do things OUR way. The good way.

Well fuck you. I helped out, today. I gave time and effort for a cause. I read a book for my HSC. And like it or not, I had fun doing it: my fun, not yours. Productive fun. Profitable fun. Helpful fun. Constructive fun. Not only do these things exist, but they exist because they are better. You don’t go home with a destroyed voice box and nothing to show for it. You go home sure that you have done a good thing, and that is more fun than any swimming carnival you could ever have, because it is the gift that keeps on giving.

3: This is your last swimming carnival, so you MUST do it as best you can.

No I don’t. That’s like saying that for the last marriage I ever attend, my own or someone elses, I need to make sure that someone is super-duper married by the end of it. I didn’t enjoy any of the other swimming carnivals, and you can’t force me to like this one.

One thing they actually said to me was “You can at least TRY to have fun.”

Try to have fun? I’m sorry, but if you have to actively force yourself to enjoy something, you’re doing it wrong. Fun should be… hmm, now what’s that word again? Oh yes. FUN. And being forced to do something against your will is categorically UNFUN.

Now I’m not against the idea of swimming carnivals – or, for a more broad perspective, but otherwise identically argued, sports in general – for anyone else. I just don’t like everyone else’s perceptions of fun and boredom to be forced onto me against my will. It’s like not enjoying something is illegal, and I have no choice but to play along with their fascist delusions. I was literally belittled today for – get this, because we are talking about mature selective students – being different. It would be laughable if it wasn’t true, but it is.

So I come to you today, all one of you, for I have a grave and serious confession to make. This was my last ever Swimming Carnival, I stepped inside the pool area twice, and – with an entirely serious face here – I didn’t enjoy it. Not for one second while I was in that fence. There. Confession confessed.

But, perversely, I did enjoy myself today. I helped the office ladies, and ran their errands. I read one of the great works of English fiction, I donated time to helping a good cause, and I helped with tomorrow’s Prefect Induction. I spent my day helping others, away from the Carnival entirely, and I enjoyed myself immensely.

But apparently, I didn’t have fun at all.