Here is the description of a syndrome that affects some people:

Stares fixedly at a certain point.
Immobility.
Reluctance to be moved.
Unaware of surroundings.
Unresponsive to external stimulus.

That is the description of catatonic schizophrenia.

It is also the exact description of someone watching TV.

You are what you do. Think about that the next time you sit down to watch TV.

As you're watching TV, you'll occasionally see something called football. This is where two groups of very large men get together and commit assault and battery on one another in what appears to be a dispute about which side of a line on the ground a football should be placed.

My first and only experience with this exercise in futility came when I entered high school. Being from the country, I had never seen or even heard anything about football. We were hauled out to the stadium at the edge of town on buses. Watching from the stadium seats, these two groups of young men lined up facing each other and attempted to advance a football in the direction they were facing. Then, they lined up and did it again. Then, they lined up and did it again. Then they, well, you already know.

The third time of this repetitive procedure was all it took for me to understand that I knew all I need to know about football, so I got up and left. Took about fifteen minutes. That's the extent of my football watching.

It's difficult to understand the fascination that millions of people have with a completely predictable process. Why watch with such fascination something where you already know exactly what's going to happen and that also has no effect at all on anything?

I actually went out to a football field and placed a football on one side of the line that is in such dispute, looked all around. Nothing happened. Then I placed the ball on the other side of the line, looked all around. Again, absolutely no effect.

The solution to the phenomenon of football is obvious. For some strange reason it has never occurred to the people involved that there can be two footballs. You give a football to each group in the dispute, they can go to any line they choose and place the football on either side of the line they choose. Then they can stand back, observe the football in their consideration of its proper place, and whoop and holler and jump in the air. All without any conflict with anyone. And to no effect whatsoever.

Golf is similar in it's participants having the peculiar belief that it's extremely important that a small ball be place in a hole in the ground. As to what effect, as in football, there is none.

The solution to golf is also obvious. It hasn't occurred to the players that humans have an opposable thumb, designed for grasping and picking up things.

Instead of trying to awkwardly maneuver the little ball into the hole in the ground with a long stick, they can simply pick up the ball and drop it in the hole. This accomplishes what they try for hours to do with those funny looking sticks. This gets another exercise in futility over with and everybody can go home.

Probably to watch TV.