We see the struggle in competition, we see the growth and the atrophy, we see the joy and the heartbreak, and we take small comfort. We know that we are not alone in this universe. In a sense, it is also a struggle that comes with a large benefit our individual struggles do not: they truly do not matter in a way that affects us, unless we let it. Well, easier said than done. Sometimes, we do take small comfort. And others, we take great pain.
Perhaps it is that subconscious knowledge that we shouldn’t be truly hurt by our hobby that allows our conscious self to let our walls down, to allow ourselves to live fully in the celebrations, and the grief, that come in a victory or a loss that was never truly our own.