IT IS deeply encouraging that some people can keep a secure gap on reality while many of the rest of us are whirling around, totally out of control and allowing ourselves to be deflected from serious matters, which are profoundly crucial to the meaning of life.

From time to time shallow people like myself who indulged ourselves in trivial pursuits like hurling or golf or soccer or horse racing are confronted by our more profound brethern with the information: "Well of course I know absolutely nothing whatever about sport."

They deliver themselves of this priceless information as though it were something which adds even more gravitas to their already embellished aura.

I do not exaggerate. In a recent article in these pages my colleague, John Waters, in reflection on the state of the nation wrote that "sport and other trivia" seemed to have deflected the collective national mind from more weighty matters in recent times.

He blamed what is known in the newspaper business as "the silly season" for misleading us all into believing that "sport and other trivia" are dangerous elements in our lives.

Apart altogether from posing the question as to what the "other trivia" referred to might be, it may be useful to take a serious look at what part sport may play in the lives of human beings.

Even more important may be a suggestion that humans who are as dismissive of sport as "trivial" may be in dire need of help in order to allow them to be part of the real world.

In regard to the "other trivia" referred to, I presume that what some refer to very loosely as music - pop, punk and heavy metal - is included under this description. If that presumption is correct then John Waters must either be a confused man or... a very confused man.

But to get back to sport and its role in human life and existence. It is believed by some philosophers that man is the only animal which laughs. There are, however, many reasons to believe that many other members of the animal kingdom actually have a facility for enjoying themselves.

Consider the calf born in winter and living indoors for the several weeks of its young life, and how it responds to its first taste of freedom in an open field.

One might ask a thrush why it sings so gloriously in a late summer evening. Such things surely cannot be regarded as trivial. Why, for instance then should vast numbers of members. In recent times psychologists have come around to the idea that, since modern technology has intruded so totally on our life styles, that the human race will have to cope with more and more leisure time. Would that not suggest then that sport will become much more important to all of us and that those who dismiss it as "trivial" are barking up the wrong pole vault?

And who are these dismissive, toffee nosed, superior types anyway? Was George Bernard Shaw not a boxing writer, Albert Camus a goalkeeper, Paddy Kavanagh another, albeit less successful, goalkeeper? Is it not true that Paul Gallico was a sports enthusiast, Ernest Hemingway also? Is it not true that Ben Kiely and John Healy covered the Billy Kelly Ray Famecheon fight in Donnybrook for the Irish Press? Did not Damon Runyon write gloriously of sport?

Mention of the lamented Irish Press brings me to the fact that some fine courageous people from the wreck of that good ship have recently launched a Sunday newspaper (almost) totally devoted to sport called The Title. Are their lives and futures and their dreams to be regarded as trivial or should we say, as I most certainly do, "More power to your collective elbow"?

Those who have not gloried when Barry McGuigan became world champion, when Stephen Roche won the Tour de France when Michael Carruth and Wayne McCullough were feted in the streets of Dublin and when thousands turned up in the pouring rain to see Michelle Smith laden with Olympic medals don't know what life really means.

Let me put it like this. These people are missing a vital part of themselves and their heritage. How dull must it be not to have thrilled to great sporting moments.

Who can forget Packie Bonner's save and Dave O'Leary's penalty or Anthony Daly lifting the McCarthy Cup above the blue and gold of Clare.

Give me half an hour of John Egan or Jimmy Keaveney. Let my see Paddy Prendergast or Liam Brady or Joe Haverty, let me see Chunky O'Brien shorten his grip or Gerald McCarthy sweep the ball over the bar from under the Cusack Stand in a moment of sheer artistry or Sonia O'Sullivan surge majestically off the final bend.

When I see and remember such things I am alive and know that while the trivia of the world may have to be faced tomorrow I have, at the very least, been alive today.