"Winning all the time
isn't what's best for everybody. [...]
Maybe I had to be that example of
picking myself up off the floor
for everyone.
Maybe that's what I'm meant for".
Ronda Rousey: the very embodiment of the word 'motivation' for most people, arguably until her first loss to competitor Holly Holm at the UFC 193 on November 15, 2015.
I remember being extremely saddened by the fact that I could not acquire tickets to attend UFC 193, particularly considering it took place in my hometown, and that my favorite fighter, Ronda Rousey, would be headlining the main fight. I was ecstatic to think that I could witness the most powerful female at the time clash against another professional fighter and presumably win, cementing her rights to be blatantly outgoing and excessively motivated, and her rights to be boastful. However I missed the ability to attend said event, and had to wait until after the match to hear the predicted results.
But to my surprise, and mind you it was not a surprise that I went through alone, I was notified that such a figure of power and determination had lost. I had to watch the painful replay of her loss myself to believe what I had heard. And watching the knockout at that moment, I saw not only a 50 pound kick to the head, but I saw the closure of a fixated and hardened mind. I saw the bringing down of both a figure of force and supremacy. And I had lost interest in Ronda immediately. She had advertised herself as a beastly winner, fulfilling promises and proving herself true each time. She became a figure of truth, a figure which instilled hope in me: if I could not achieve what I wanted in life, it was okay, because I had the chance to live my achievements through her achievements. She made possible the realm of dreams, and merging of dreams with reality. She made me feel as though motivation and my mind could coexist in harmony.
Video: The highlights of UFC 193 - Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm.
And as shallow and selfish as that sounds, it all fell and withered away with her in the duration of that fight. But I had not known the actual impact of that fight until today, February the 17th, 2016. I watched daytime television for the first time in months, flicking uncomfortably through unappealing shows until I settled into watching The Ellen Degeneres Show. Usually my television set, upon the hit of the information button, would show me a synopsis of the show, and that synopsis would contain a list of guests. That list would determine whether or not I would continue watching it. It no longer contains that, and I had to sit through it if I were to find out who was featured on the show. And so I did.
I had not expected myself to experience the first interview Ronda Rousey was to partake in after her loss, discussing her loss. I thought nothing of it. I sat there staring but not focussing at what was being said. The figure of power who had inflated herself into a blimp-sized figure of mass destruction had deflated, and meant nothing to me. I could no longer seek her interviews for motivation. I was disheartened. And then something strange happened. Something, prior to this, that had scarcely taken place for the viewing of the public. Ronda began to cry. I could not determine how an already deflated ego could deflate some more, however it did, and what occurred stunned me.
Ronda transformed from a regular fighter into a symbol of utter power, to a hollowed and distasteful person of fame, then to a regular human being. Ronda rendered herself, again to my surprise, even more fragile than she was when she lost her fight. She no longer partook in a fight against another human, rather a fight within herself. Ronda exposed at the very moments documented below, how real it is to be human. She expressed the dangers of the cognition of existentialism, as well as expressing her victimisation due to this cognition:
"I was in the medical room, down in the corner and I was like, what am I anymore if I'm not this? I was literally sitting there thinking about killing myself and in that exact second I'm like, I'm nothing, I'm like, what do I do anymore? No one gives a sh*t about me anymore".
Ronda has shown that she is aware of her impact on the world and its peoples. She has displayed her understanding of herself and what she means to her existence, as well as the existence of others. In fact, her existence is defined by others. This is the very denotation of existentialism: to exist and to know of your existence and to be able to distinguish your existence from the existence of others. When one is cognitive of their sense of existentialism, one continuously attempts to live at the expectations contained within their existence. Once one is removed from these expectations, one is lost and rendered fragile.
Ronda's fragility comforts us. This is why her interview has received a positive response. Humans respond to the fragility of others with a sense of empathy. Empathy is the breeding ground of relation. Through Ronda's fragility, we feel as though we can relate to her, and instead of being the display of strength, she has now turned into the display of the very notion of the existence of a human: to try, to fail, to admit, and to rise above and try again.
Another element which makes Ronda seemingly human and less of a machine is her dependence on another being: Travis Browne. Travis is for Ronda what she was to us when she was headstrong and sure of herself. She became plastered all over the media, she who was for the first time a realistic figure that we not only look up to, but rely on. We are merely a group of ants working for the queen ant that is capitalism, and as slaves we look to strength, preferably the visual kind, so as to let it enter our eyes and fill our sous with the hopes of a better tomorrow. She was the possessor of an ideal mind, and ideal mindset and an ideal way to approach the execution of all hurdles life places before us:
"I looked up and I saw my man, Travis. [He] was standing there and I just looked up at him and I was just like, I need to have his babies. I need to stay alive. [...] I was meant to have him when I was at my lowest".
However bad her knockout, both literal and figurative (in terms of her deflation), Ronda has scattered herself into a pile of ashes, proclaimed her loss of self, and from that proclamation picked herself up, pieced herself together and has risen into a fiery phoenix of motivation, this time with bigger and brighter flames, forcing onlookers to squint and those with their backs turned hold fast to their napes as her flames scorch their ignorance and impartiality. And again we look, but this time after having regained her trust because of her fragility, we do not look up at her, we look up to her. And she recognises that, hence reaffirming her self-efficacy due to her newly transformed sense of motivation:
"I really do believe that I'm still undefeated because being defeated is a choice; everybody has losses in their life but I choose to always be undefeated".
"Good for you", replied Ellen, slapping her hand down on her armchair.
No, Ellen. Good for us. Good for us.
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