The spat106 short longform #35

Natural rivalries

Sure, last week’s newsletter was about arch enemies but this week it is about natural rivalries and that’s a whole lot different, for one thing arch enemies and natural rivalries are spelt and said differently. No one can deny that at all can they? And if they decide to deny that then they are being highly argumentative for no apparent reason, we’re just trying to have fun here pal. Amongst the most bitter rivals are the ones closest to you, I’m not saying your mum or even your next door neighbour are your main rivals but things such as your nearest city or country can be rivals of you. Such rivalries that exist are between Kiwis and Australians, Samoans and Tongans and the ultimate rivalry would be the English who have a rivalry against the Welsh, the Scots, the Irish, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Germans, the Italians, the Austrians, the Danes, the Czechs, the Swiss, the Serbs, the Croats, the Bulgarians, the Romanians and the Polish, just to name a few. If you don’t believe that’s true, then I have one conjured up word for you, Brexit. Also the English are not too keen on the Americans from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean if you are scratching your head struggling to find people that the English are not such big fans of.

The whole thing of a rival being close to you lends itself to the saying keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer, although I find it more comfortable to have friends within my personal space than my enemies, the only time you should let your enemies close is if you have to crush them. It’s much harder to crush enemies using Skype (or some other type of teleconference software that hasn’t had its name associated with video calling such as Skype has) than face to face. This lack of competition for Skype proves that Skype has no natural enemies which is a shame because everyone on the planet has one.

A rivalry that is meant to occur between people who are close together is a rivalry between siblings. If you have a brother or sister then there is meant to be a competitive streak happening between the two of you. This competitiveness won’t happen when you know that you are superior to the other sibling and they also know that for a fact too but if that fact isn’t acknowledged by all parties then sibling rivalry can occur. Sibling rivalry exists as a competition with the unwanted prize of having a parent’s affection so you could say it’s not worth it if for instance you prefer to have the prize to be an expensive sports car rather than the love of a parent. But they say the love of a parent is priceless but one could argue that something without a price is literally less valuable than something that has a price. The biggest example of sibling rivalry was in Sister Act, where the sisters tried to outdo one another in the singing.