There’s a scene towards the end of “Cast Away” that I’ve always liked a lot, and this… There’s a scene towards the end of “Cast Away” that I’ve always liked a lot, and this weekend reminded me why that is.

“Cast Away,” for those of you not in the know, came out five or so years ago when Tom Hanks was winning Oscars like they were Ren and Stimpy posters in the dart booth at the county fair. The plan was that this flick would do the same, especially because he got skinny for it and also grew a beard, but instead it got only two stars and airs on TBS a lot. It’s the story of a FedEx executive who survives a plane crash in the South Pacific and then finds himself stranded alone on a tropical island for the next four years. He eventually builds a raft and manages to make it past the waves and out to sea where an ocean liner finds him and whisks him back home. When he gets back home, he tries to reunite with his girlfriend, Helen Hunt, but discovers that she got married and had a kid while he was on vacation. Anyway, the whole thing comes to a head while he’s sitting in a buddy’s living room taking inventory of his life, and his friend asks him something to the effect of how did he survive on the island. Hanks takes a dramatic pause (because taking dramatic pauses are the surest sign that you’re a wicked good actor, almost as much so as beard growth) and says this:

I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself … the weight of the log snapped the limb of the tree, so I-I-, I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope.

You’re probably crying now, and that’s OK. You’re human.

“If Hanks hadn’t shaved his beard off at this point, he’d have won the s–t out of that Oscar.”

I know you’re thinking this, and you’re right. That isn’t the point, though. The point is that this philosophy represents a radical departure from the typical “Woe is me, how can I overcome the shambles my life has become?” response we’ve been conditioned to have. Rather than pray for better days to come, Hanks did the exact opposite. He abandoned optimism. He survived not by clinging to hope, but by pushing it away.

He decided that the only way to hang on was to let go.

We at Pitt are a divided campus. I don’t mean that we’re divided by race or religion or our opinion on bisexual teenagers who molest bishops or where we drink. I mean that we’re divided by football. Specifically, we’re divided into two factions: the Eagles, the Steelers and everybody else (Three I suppose). It’s a bitter rivalry that’s settled each weekend with taunting and drinking and pushing and then more drinking and maybe vomiting. Then yelling.

After this past week, there is one thing both factions are together on, though: we’re finished. Both teams lost two games, several key players and any possibility of having a season that won’t be filed under “colossal disappointment.”

I’ve been a Philadelphia Eagles fan my entire life, a condition that usually leaves me a train wreck this time of year. This happens because the team consistently shows just enough promise to keep me fully emotionally invested, and then invariably does something ridiculously unlikely to lose the biggest games. It’s like raising a kid who makes honor roll but keeps getting DUIs.

This year was following the same script until the weekend before last when our quarterback tore his knee, ending his season and maybe the prime of his career. One play and it was all over. A once promising season with an ending so abrupt and absolute I got whiplash … and then really, really, dangerously drunk.

A week and a handful of years off my life expectancy later, I found myself in front of the television watching the Eagles play a game that was over before it began. As the Colts ran up the scoreboard and my younger brother yelled into a sofa cushion, something unexpected started to happen. I found myself enjoying the game. Instead of yelling and screaming and punching furniture when we fell behind, I appreciated our offensive tackle’s footwork when he dropped back to pass block. When we scored a pair of touchdowns to cut their lead to 10, rather than jump up and down in celebration, I marveled at the way our backup linebacker sacrificed his body to break the wedge on the ensuing kickoffs. I didn’t focus on the outcome, but on the little things. I just watched football.

I stopped caring, and it was awesome.

I was free. And guess what: You can feel that way, too. For the rest of the season just let go. You can, and should, watch the games, and you should still get in fights with people (because you don’t want to get out of practice for next season), but for the sake of your soul, just ease up a bit. Let it happen.

Don’t care.

Tom doesn’t care if you liked this column. E-mail him at [email protected], or don’t. Whatever.