Analyzing my tendency to overanalyze

“Do you ever think you might spend too much time analyzing things?”

I was asked that question last month by my friend Davey. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but I know I was worried about something.

Now, I’ve known Davey since I was 15.¹ Of all the people I’ve met over the course of my life, he has a unique ability to make me laugh at my own tendency to overthink things, which is exactly what I was doing.

I would be much happier if I didn’t think as much as I do.

I’m not joking about this. I truly wish that I was able to hear about an event that strikes me as odd, shrug my shoulders and say, “Huh, that’s kind of weird,” before forgetting about it entirely.

That’s not how I’m wired, though. I’m bound to roll that topic around in my noggin’, letting it rattle around with all my other loose thoughts that I’m trying to make sense of.

I have a great example of this.

Earlier this month, two high-school football players from Tacoma signed what amounts to endorsement deals with a local burger joint.

•  NIL officially reaches Washington high schools

  By Jon Manley | The News Tribune (Tacoma)

Good for them. Sounds like they’re going to get their fill of burgers. A pair of six-month contracts to promote Secret Burger Kitchen certainly aren’t going to affect the earth’s rotation, and if those kids are able to make a coupe of dollars in the process, that’s great.

It’s certainly not worse than the get-ready-with-me influencers.

Additionally, it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to say it’s OK for college players to cash in on their notoriety and then turn around and say it’s wrong for high-school juniors and seniors to do the same thing.

I wish that was the full extent of my internal monologue.

However, that is not the full extent of my internal monologue.

I start thinking about all the ways that marketing deals might be used as incentives for high-school kids. I imagine them using the word “platform” to describe a high-school football program. I think of freaking Baby Gronk.

You remember him? That was the 10-year-old whose father was pitching him as the next big thing in college football. The kid was being photographed in the attire of different schools, his scholarship “offers” being chronicled as if they were real and his Dad was pitching reporters and podcasts for interviews.

So I wrote about the two high-school football players in Tacoma who signed the marketing agreements with the local burger joint. The News Tribune published the column earlier this week.

• High-school sports don’t have to be a business

  By Danny O’Neil | The News Tribune (Tacoma)

Then I talked about it with Christian Caple on the latest episode of “Say Who, Say Pod.”

And now I feel kind of like that guy. You know that guy. The one who’s always going to make a counterpoint by finding a potential molehill and making it into a theoretical mountain.

I was able to take the deal entirely at face value without thinking any deeper. It’s two high-school football players who’re well-regarded in the area, getting some money in exchange for bringing attention to a locally owned business.

Instead, I think about how this is going to encourage high-school athletes to look at their social-media accounts and their athletic endeavors as marketing tools. I think about what will happen as teenagers start looking to create commercial value out of those things.

Do I ever think I might spend too much time overanalyzing things?

Yeah, I do. Especially today.

Eric Adams is the current mayor of New York. He’s running for re-election as an independent. He’s also generally considered to to be a crook. He’s the first mayor in this city’s history to be indicted while in office. He allegedly accepted illegal gifts from Turkey (the country), including first-class airline accommodations. Now that the case has been shelved, Adams is referencing his Turkish travel in his campaign videos. This week, the New York Times reported that its reporters have seen envelopes of cash handed out at three separate campaign events for Adams.

Well, it took five days, but someone retrieved the booted tire that was left at the end of our block.

1  I was at Davey’s house when Magic Johnson announced he had tested positive for HIV. It was a day, maybe two after Halloween. The reason I know that is because on Halloween we had crawled our way through what turned out to be poison oak, running away from another group of high-school kids. Our hands were full of weepy, oozing sores so after school, we’d gone to the beach, fetched a bucket of water and were sitting in his house, soaking our hands in saltwater with our eyes glued to the television, watching Magic Johnson announce his retirement.