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Message: [QUOTE="diggerfoot, post: 3246131, member: 1673"] The recent poll with reference to realism, a recurring concept among fans, prompts these reflections. Before becoming focused on brain health, my research hobby included studying how the meaning of words become distorted and/or diluted. Both have consequences, as in leading one to believe and behave the opposite of what one might intend, or to dilute their behavior when a concept has so many meanings as to become meaningless. Concepts such as freedom, community, free market, democracy, altruism and others have fell victim to this distortion or dilution. Which leads me to the BY view on being realistic, or a realist. Being realistic is to base one's judgement on the realm of what is real or possible. Being real is not the same as being certain. In fact, to be certain about any projected loss number is to be unreal about one's ability. There is a realistic probability that UConn could lose anywhere from 0-3 games in the regular season. Both 0 and 3 may be unlikely, but still a possibility with some supporting evidence based on past performances of UConn and other programs. I suggest that 4 losses gets into the realm of unreal pessimism for this program, given the regular season schedule. While this is not apparent from the poll, an expectation that this coming year's team will be the best ever in the annals of UConn basketball would be an example of unreal optimism. Our fan base is likely to constrain the meaning of realistic towards the pessimistic end. The supporting evidence is that programs who did better than us last year either lose less or about the same amount as us. I would bet anyone an extra large pizza that the fan base of most other schools would constrain realistic towards their pessimistic end as well, believing that we lose no more than one game during the regular season. Why? Because past history reveals that whenever we have a lot of AA talent on a team we do not ever rebuild, we reload. The most striking example is when we lost the Big Three but did not have a single loss in the regular season, despite a tough OOC schedule. I'll admit, that year I was one of those "realists" that proved to be too pessimistic in my expectations. A silly musing? Perhaps. But I think what goes on here in our little fandom has broader societal implications. Realism has gravitated towards pessimism in our society, or at least towards the realistic side of pessimism. Equating realism with pessimism has consequences not just for society but for brain health as well, partially contributing to why our society is 43rd in health adjusted life expectancy, the lowest of "first world" countries. [/QUOTE]

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