and yeah, look -- this story seems to be only tangentially related to sports, but I still think it's interesting. below is the part I think is interesting, the rest I think is Chuck Klosterman over-explaining simple things as is his wont.

I also think Royce White is on to something in the below, but I also think it's stupid to say "fear," which I would identify as the underlying factor in many of these illnesses he discusses, is a disability on par with a physical injury. it just isn't. it's fear. and yeah some people deal with fear better, some people not so well, but I'm not honestly comfortable with conflating a person with debilitating fear as being equivalent to a brain damaged quadreplegic, for example. so that's my two cents.

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http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8890734/chuck-klosterman-royce-white

I spoke to White last Wednesday, the night after his appearance on Real Sports debuted. Before examining anything else, I want to cut straight to the most interesting part of our conversation, which happened within the first 10 minutes of dialogue. Here are the circumstances: I'd just landed in Houston and driven to my hotel downtown. At 4:56 p.m., I get a text from White, instructing me to meet him at the Cheesecake Factory near First Colony Mall, a shopping complex in Sugar Land, Texas (roughly 45 minutes away on US-59), at 5:50. When I get there, he's seated on the outside patio with two associates; one is a large fellow who declines to give his name ("That's irrelevant," he says when asked) and the other is someone named Bryant (who's wearing a faux-vintage 1956 letterman's jacket and constantly checking his phone). The roles these individuals play are nebulous. The 6-foot-8 White is relaxed. He's wearing a backward Obey Propaganda hat, a watch the size of a clock, and shoes that resemble (and may actually function as) house slippers. He's built like a double helix of panther sinew — whenever he adjusts his left arm, the biceps bulges so dramatically that it's distracting. We make no chitchat. We immediately start talking about all the things we're expected to talk about. I mention a statistic: According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 26 percent of Americans over the age of 18 suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. I ask White if he thinks that stat carries over into the NBA. This was the subsequent interaction (make sure you read all the way to the end, when the conversation shifts unexpectedly):

--Do you believe 26 percent of the league is dealing with a mental illness, or does mental illness prompt those dealing with it to self-select themselves out of the pool? Are you the rare exception who got drafted?

The amount of NBA players with mental health disorders is way over 26 percent. My suggestion would be to ask David Stern how many players in the league he thinks have a marijuana problem. Whatever number he gives you, that's the number with mental illness. A chemical imbalance is a mental illness.

--So, wait … if somebody has a drinking problem, is that —

That's a mental illness. A gambling addiction is a mental illness. Addiction is a mental illness.

--Well, then what's the lowest level of mental illness? What is the least problematic behavior that still suggests a mental illness?

The reality is that you can't black-and-white it, no matter how much you want to. You have to be OK with it being gray. There is no end or beginning. It's more individualistic. If someone tears a ligament, there is a grade for its severity. But there's no grade with mental illness. It all has to do with the person and their environment and how they are affected by that environment.

--OK, I get that. But you classify a gambling addiction as a mental illness. Gambling is incredibly common among hypercompetitive people. The NBA is filled with hypercompetitive people. So wouldn't this mean that —

Here's an even tougher thing that we're just starting to uncover: How many people don't have a mental illness? But that's what we don't want to talk about.

--Why wouldn't we want to talk about that?

Because that would mean the majority is mentally ill, and that we should base all our policies around the idea of supporting the mentally ill. Because they're the majority of people. But if we keep thinking of them as a minority, we can say, "You stay over there and deal with your problems over there."

OK, just so I get this right: You're arguing that most Americans have a mental illness.

Exactly. That's definitely correct.

--But — if that's true — wouldn't that mean "mental illness" is just a normative condition? That it's just how people are?

That doesn't make it normal. This is based on science. If there was a flu epidemic, and 60 percent of the country had the flu, it wouldn't make it normal … the problem is growing, and it's growing because there's a subtle war — in America, and in the world — between business and health. It's no secret that 2 percent of the human population controls all the wealth and the resources, and the other 98 percent struggle their whole life to try and attain it. Right? And what ends up happening is that the 2 percent leave the 98 percent to struggle and struggle and struggle, and they eventually build up these stresses and conditions.

--So … this is about late capitalism?

Definitely. Definitely.