Today, of course, we no longer have to hunt for food and migrate with our food supply like we once did. We find that we were designed as a species for physical high-performance activity and, yet, we are now living in an environment in which the opportunities to be physically active are diminishing. We are also faced with challenges that can cause our spirits to wane and our dreams to become clouded and misguided.
As we formed societies, tribes, and cities and towns, our physical development became less of an imperative for survival. We formed social contracts, developed infrastructures, and created technologies. Our ability to outrun predators and catch prey took on new expressions once we transcended, as Abraham Maslow called it, the "hierarchy of basic needs" like shelter and food. Despite progress, our inherent drives—instilled within us for thousands of generations—have remained active.
Generation after generation, life brings new issues of social, physical, and economic challenges: famine, war, upheaval, disease, and apathy, the maladies of the modern world. With our march out of the bush and into the suburban and urban jungle, our minds and bodies are evolving, albeit slowly. Today, success in our society is not measured in the kill, but in the self-proclaimed win.
We, as individuals and as a species, are hardwired to be survivors.
This is how the life of sport and the sport of life are inextricably linked. The fact that our human spirit can succeed over the toughest challenges is part of our heritage.