The Obsession with Challenges

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Ice Bucket Challenge, cold water challenge, Pixabar name challenge – these are the latest quests the knights of Camelot are offered are they? What happened to finding grails, slaying dragons and rescuing damsels in distress? Now it’s stick your head in a bucket of lard, post film of yourself in the bath on Youtube, or jump off a cliff challenges. How about a say no to the next person who challenges you to take a challenge-challenge? It used to be that when our children did something wrong and got caught their excuse was that someone told them to do it. We would then say something like; ‘if Tommy told you to punch yourself in the face would you do that?’ Nowadays, it seems we would do that, just because Tommy said it was a challenge and possibly for charity. While it can be fun to make fools of ourselves, we seem to be open to every whim anyone suggests nowadays – it is so widespread and indiscriminate that the value of such activity is lost because everyone does it. I once sat in a bath of peas for charity but now it is done so often by so many that no one notices or cares any more. Many such stunts are not organized by imaginative individuals but by businesses, obliging their workers to indulge to be able to look caring, while claiming the money back through tax loopholes for charitable donations. Many challenges seem to be indulged in by people jumping on a band-wagon. When my namesake king launched the Grail-quest challenge it was for a handful of knights – now such a quest-challenge would be launched by mass media with half the nation eager to join in, and TV celebs gushing about what progress we were making as we searched the realm, stopping to take selfies and throw custard over ourselves as we go. Arthur (taking the try to be less cynical today challenge) Chappell.