What force is so strong that it has the power to bring even the strongest man to his knees? What force plagues the workforce at all hours of the day? What force prevents continuous work at all times of the day, making us bow to the night as if to say “We are not strong enough”? That force is exhaustion, the most terrible and rarely conquerable force on earth.
As I stood staring at such a life-like sculpture in the confines of a briskly chilly art museum corridor, I could only imagine the amount of exhausted nights the sculptor had to endure to create his extremely exhausted masterpiece. The sculptor Duane Hanson and his piece “The Football Player” most-certainly shared the same facial expression at one point in their existence, as to describe their excessively tired states’. One might infer that Hanson’s piece was created in part to express the feeling of exhaustion that was created from his constant work.
The full size replica of an early 80’s Miami Dolphins football player is eerily realistic, right down to the hairs on the player’s arms. The player’s attire is all true to the era, from the circa-1980’s NFL jersey and pants, 80’s style shoulder pads and helmet to the orange and white Nike cleats from the same era. The player is depicted crouched on top of his helmet in terrible exhaustion.
The piece was meant to commemorate an American society where football is not just a job or a pastime, but a way of life, an obsession. It also exemplifies the constant body preparation and consciousness that athletes have to endure, as well as the exhaustion created from this constantly prepared state.
“The Football Player” shows how physically draining this obsession can be. NFL quarterback Matt Leinart eerily describes the drain ...
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...s and in turn create unfavorable conditions.
So this “Universally Felt” force of exhaustion is not all-powerful anymore. It does not have to be the subject of our nightmares or the reason for our failures. The way we as humans prepare for our various “battles” in everyday life—in all aspects—can positively or negatively affect our success in it against our archenemy exhaustion. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” (Vince)
Works Cited
O’brien, Michael Vince: A Personal Biography of Vince Lombardi
Harper Paperbacks; (September 20, 1989)
“Fatigue (Physical)” Wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_%28physical%29#Types
Gladwell, Malcolm Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Little, Brown and Company; (January, 2005)
Hawley, JA & Reilly, T 'Fatigue revisited' Journal of Sport Science (1997)
www.Artstor.org
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