The Three Stages of Cinnabon

Stage 1: "I have to have one! It smells irresistable!"

Stage 2: "Oh man. This is so good."

Stage 3: "I should not have eaten that."

Pro? Am?

I'm pretty sure everyone who watches sports, at some point, has wanted to be a professional athlete. And 99% of those people had delusions of becoming a pro athlete. I'll share when the dream died for me.

We had a weekly tennis club in middle school. We would play on the parking lot behind school with these crappy nets. There were four or five courts, I think, and the courts were arranged in a hierarchy. The worst players were on the far left, the best players on the far right. By the time eighth grade was over, I was the best player on the best court. To me, it stood to reason that I was going to move on to high school, be the best player on the high school team, go to college, become the best player there, then move into the pros. I never said it had any ground in reality.

So my freshman year, I had my first match of my career against Chagrin Falls. I was playing second doubles. One of the opposing players showed up wearing jeans that were a little tight and a little short, and there was a pack of Camel Lights sticking out of one of the pockets. He and his partner proceeded to clean our clocks. My pro aspirations ended that day.

I watch a lot of pro tennis and follow it pretty closely, and on more than one occasion, I wish I was there on tour. Lately, though, I've been thinking: Is that really the best scenario?

To get to the professional ranks, you have to have a singular focus. How many pro athletes are well-rounded people? It doesn't seem to be a high number. Baseball players, for some reason, seem to be particularly stupid. Pro athletes essentially live on another planet. They have money beyond the dreams of most and do not interact with the common man, usually. They exist separate from the rest of humanity. It's extremely difficult for them to stay grounded. How many athletes go broke soon after retiring because they couldn't manage their money? How many get busted for drugs because they need the rush?

It might not be worth it. A sports career doesn't really contribute much to the human race, all things considered. There might be an Arthur Ashe or Muhammed Ali that comes along every once in a while, but they're rare. I feel like I'm more connected to humanity, better well-rounded, more intelligent than the average professional sportsman. I feel like I have the opportunity to do things to really make the world better, and that I don't have contempt for the common man that rich athletes do.

I'm not saying I wouldn't join the ATP if I was offered the opportunity. I'm also not saying I'm better off the way I am. But perhaps the life of the pro athlete is not as awesome as we'd like to think, and maybe our "common" lives are better than we realize.

This Might Not Make Sense

The average IQ is 100. This provides an objective benchmark for comparing people, but most of us use ourselves as the standard. We consider people smarter than us to be smart and those not as smart to be, well, not smart. This is OK when you're average intelligence, but what if you're not? Are dumb people considering slightly less dumb people smart? Are smart people considering slightly less smart people dumb? Does that truly matter?

The older I get, the more I think the "ignorance is bliss" axiom is true. I think this is because I look around and I see a lot of people wrapped up in their consumerism and/or their own worlds, and they all seem pretty happy. Meanwhile, the people who like to take a deeper look and change things don't seem to be quite as thrilled with the world¹. Change never came from those who were satisfied.

It's well documented that many great artists and thinkers had problems with depression and other disorders. This is not likely a coincidence; it seems harder, for some reason, to produce great things when you're happy.

It's like some sort of devil's bargain. Most people who are smart and/or gifted probably wouldn't trade it for the sort of carefree demeanor the less worldly seem to enjoy, but it seems to come with some sort of torture mentally or emotionally. There is a price to be paid. Faulkner probably doesn't write The Sound and the Fury if he loved everything, right? It seems to be harder to be happy, the smarter and/or more gifted you are. It's like you see things, and you see how it's all wrong, and it's all you can focus on. And nobody else is able or willing to see it that way. How can you possibly be happy?

Maybe The Matrix was on to something. If you saw the truth, how could you deal with it? Those people never seemed happy, but they didn't want to trade their knowledge for happiness. Except Cypher, of course.

What it comes down to is I think the mentally and artistically exceptional have a sort of burden, something trying to drag them down. Some hide it, some don't acknowledge it, but it's there. Some overcome it, some embrace it, some merely fight it to a standstill. But it exists. There's a reason Alanis Morisette stopped making good music after she wasn't angry anymore. How many people still listen to "Thank U"?

__________________________________________________________________

1 I realize this sounds really bitter and kind of elitist. This is not intentional.

Just Down the Road From King's Island...

I'm excited! This week is the ATP tournament in Cincinnati. For the second straight year, I'll be attending. I went for the first time in 2003¹, then again last year.

The first time, it was the excitement of seeing pro tennis in person for the first time. Everything was a new experience, and it was pretty overwhelming in a great way. Last year was fun and newish because five years had passed, so many of the players at the tournament I hadn't seen before. I was seeing almost all of them for the first time.

That won't be the case this year. In fact, this won't even be the first tournament I attend this year; I spent a day at the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne. I actually was within five feet of Roger Federer. This was when things were looking like they were falling apart for him and everyone thought he was kind of done, but I was still in awe to be near him. I've been in close proximity to all of the world's top players except Juan Martin Del Potro. Nobody had me as awestruck as Federer². Being near Nadal was kind of like being near a rock star. Djokovic was kind of like a guy you know from the bar. Andy Murray seemed like he was amused by it all.

So I think I'm going to be entering this with a bit more poise. I won't have the sense of discovery. I like that feeling, but it will be nice to know what I'm doing and maximize my time there. If you've never been to a pro tennis event, there's a lot of things to do there. It can be overwhelming. You never see it on TV, but there are multiple courts, a huge food court³, and shopping. Lots of shopping.

I'm planning on bringing my camera this time. I'm not much of a photographer, but hopefully I'll come out with some good shots. It's gonna be a blast.

_______________________________________________________________________________

1 You can see some unexciting pictures from that trip on my Facebook page.

2 A couple months ago, I planned on writing a short entry. Roger said he still believed he could beat Nadal on clay, and I was going to poo-poo him and basically say that window had closed. Of course, he goes out and beats Nadal at Madrid, then wins the French Open and Wimbledon. I'm thankful for my laziness.

3 And the food is pretty good and not unreasonably priced. At Key Biscayne, I had a delicious mahi mahi sandwich for less than $15. It's a better deal than it might sound.

Candy Sweet

I realize my window of opportunity for dating a girl with pink hair is quickly closing. I find this depressing. I feel like this is something I should get to do.