The Joy in Daniel Bryan's Retirement

Last night, live on WWE RAW, a wrestler named Daniel Bryan announced his retirement to the world.  To a huge percentage of the population, this is almost entirely irrelevant.  But to wrestling fans (and I count myself among them) it hit like a punch in the gut.  Bryan, a stellar ring technician who rose to the top of the WWE two years ago in a story-book coronation at Wrestlemania 30, was more than just a beloved wrestler; he was a symbol of something far greater.  He was the underdog that never quit, never gave up.  He was the guy who was too good to be ignored.  He was, simply, the best to ever step foot in the ring, at least in this era of professional wrestling.  I've been thinking about his retirement all day, and it's a complicated mix of emotions.   But I keep coming back to two photos.  Here's the first.

CM Punk (left) and Daniel Bryan (right): Two indie schmucks

Echo Chambers

As a fair warning, this is probably the most old man-esque post I've penned thus far, and that might be saying something: I wrote about The Eagles of Death Metal.  And I'm not particularly a luddite.  In fact, I've got what comedian Eddie Izzard called 'techno-joy'.  I love gadgets, and I absolutely love tinkering with them and figuring out cool new tricks.  But new ideas have a tendency to create new problems, or at least awaken old ones, and the Internet is no exception.

50 years ago, if you had a minority opinion, that was simply it - you were the minority. You had to be persuasive, and sway people to your side, or you had to temper yourself, and frame your beliefs in a more palatable way. Now, there are some obvious downsides to this, and there's some upsides to 'truth' without compromise. But in this new technical age, it seems as though there's no reason to ever change your beliefs. Even the most minority opinion can find its fellows thanks to the world-linking power of the Web.