The Steward and the Witch

WARNING! The following piece contains unsubstantial rambling. Read it and you’re at your own risk. Don’t go around and flame me for writing such a lame piece (I know that already, thank you very much).

Have you ever heard of word-association? You know, the game where someone says a certain word and then the others are expected to response it by saying the first word that come up in their mind after hearing that particular word (when someone said “Fire,” I would say the first word that came up to me: “Hot”, and so on). We have to response every word as quickly as possible and that makes it hard for us to think about the answer, which is why the game is said to be useful in revealing one’s hidden thoughts. For example, there’s a chance that one would say the name of his/her secret crush when the word “Love” is spurt out.

Besides its sharpness, human mind also works in mysterious ways. It could hide the unwanted thoughts beneath the surface, yet still give them room to manifest themselves. One impulse could trigger a chain reaction inside the mind; one thing reminds us on another, and another, and another. Speaking about sub-consciousness and chain reaction inside the mind, strange occurrences happened to me recently.

As you probably know, the FIFA World Cup causes such a fuss all over the world. Even in my country, which didn’t qualify because we obviously wasn’t good enough (it’s hard to believe that my country was actually the first Asian country that participated in the World Cup), the World Cup was greeted with full enthusiasm. Responsive to this condition, the country’s leading newspaper even has a special World Cup section.

Last Saturday, the World Cup section put the pictures of twenty-three Argentina players plus their coach on its front page. Naturally, I looked for Gabriel Heinze amongst them because Heinze plays (very impressively) for Manchester United and I support United. Of course, his picture was there and the first thing that crossed my mind was this: “If Faramir of Gondor had existed, he would have looked exactly like Heinze”. See how my mind made the association there?

But that wasn’t the end of the story. You see, Faramir has always been my favorite character in Lord of the Rings. His character was the archetype of the perfect gentleman: strong, smart, perceptive, courageous, tall, handsome.... I startled at that notion. “Did I just think that Faramir was handsome?” my mind said. “That means, at the same time I was implying that Gabriel Heinze was handsome as well. Oh My God!” I analyzed.

You must forgive me for being extremely shocked at that notion. The only (and last) time I ever considered a United player good-looking was when I saw a pure and innocent twenty year old boy named David Beckham (^_~). By the time I started appreciating United for their performance as a team (and Becks started to do all the weird stuff with his hair), Becks wasn’t looked that cute anymore.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only weird thought that was triggered by football-related stuff. Another one crossed my mind yesterday when I was watching Trinidad & Tobago played against Sweden. Even though I supported Trinidad & Tobago, because I love underdogs, I didn’t really expect them to be able to do much against Sweden. After all, Sweden is the better team amongst the two. On paper, at least. On the second half however, with Trinidad & Tobago ended up with only ten men, Sweden still couldn’t manage to score any goal. For a brief second, something very weird and unthinkable crossed my mind: “I wonder if the Trinidad team had some sort of witch to back them up. Considering that they’re Caribbean, they must’ve had a strong root...,” and at that, I stopped.

I’ve always considered myself a rational person. Mind you, if I had said about it in front of someone on an attempt to joke, it’s understandable. But I was alone at the moment and the possibility of supernatural intervention was something that I thought seriously. It’s obvious that Sweden owed their failure to their hasty approach in front of the goal, T & T’s back four’s good performance, and Shaka Hislop’s composure to secure his goal. So, what on earth made me think about something really ridiculous like witchcraft?

The incidents revealed two hidden thoughts in my mind. One, despite my appreciation of one’s ability, I still judge someone by his looks (especially if that particular someone happens to be good-looking). Two, apparently I’m not as rational as I thought I was. Damn!