Measurements & Meaning

I’ve been reminded of landmarks because of my birthday. Increments of time that others feel like pointing out:

“Ten years since ___.”

“___ years since graduation.”

“You were born ___ years ago.”

These are often followed up with a sigh, a real “can you believe it?” kind of admission. Perceiving time is one of the few indications of being alive and yet it only seems to be seen in retrospect. It’s normal because being in the present—truly perceiving it without judgement—tends to offer nothing. It just “is.” This isn’t something that is easy to be comfortable with.

If I’ve made one step of progress in my life, its having a much lower perception of myself. This isn’t to say that my self-esteem is low or that I hate who I am. Far from it. I’ve grown significantly from times in college where I saw my life as meaningless, my body as unworthy of persisting. Now, I possess a clarity of vision of who I am, what I deserve, what I want to do.

A significant difference between those times and now is that I don’t perceive myself as easily as great, awful, or insignificant. The act of heightened perceiving—judging myself in the process of living—has lessened as I’ve come to understand the world.

I’m getting closer to cutting the sentence down. “I am great” or “I am awful” just becomes “I am.” When the sentence you live in is shorter, time becomes richer.

Yet, the measurements remain. Contradictions become rampant, and change continues to be the only constant. Right around the time of my birthday, I had to make a change to my self concept that bothered me more than it should have.

It was a small thing, but I decided that I would need to choose between two sports that I love: tennis and endurance running. My dream was to compete in both of these sports as much as possible. Not necessarily to win events but to put myself in the most challenging scenarios. I want to race in marathons and ultra-marathons across the world, and I want to enter tennis tournaments and win difficult matches.

As I put training sessions into my routine for both sports, my legs revealed the situation to me. Pursing both authentically to their natural conclusion would inevitably leave me too injured to compete in either. They are too high impact on my legs and I can’t reconcile my competitive nature with them. A clear indication of something my ego didn’t want: a limitation.

Even though ___ is still young, it’s not as young as I was two or five years ago. The measurements sneak into my mind again and pull me into ego-fueled perceptions of myself. Distractions, seeking to calcify myself into something I am not, taking away the agency I have to make decisions. So, I had to see the moment for what it was: a sacrifice. That’s all it is.

Once I saw it without the measurements, I found a deep satisfaction in making it. Death and I are playing chess and I saw the board clearly enough to make a move. I got to progress a little bit farther after recognizing my situation for what it was in the moment.

I chose running. Tennis would have to take a backseat, even though I adored everything about it.

Reflecting on one of my last practices, I remember being told to leave the court by the campus security because I had stayed after hours. I was hitting madly, slamming some of my best forehands into the backboard like my life depended on it. Tennis scoring was originally marked on a clock, the minute hand moving as each game neared its end. Time running out.

As the distance grows between that last practice, I see more evidence of the lunacy that tennis engenders. A method of hitting a ball back and forth somehow served as the conditions to make a global sport. People collapsing from exhaustion, bursting into tears, working since childhood to put everything into a single shot. A modern non-violent gladiatorial sport where people play into the night, practicing for something with no real benefits for survival.

Lines measured on the ground. Creating something from nothing, enough to make me spiral into a crisis over something as insignificant as hitting a ball back and forth.

I look at white lines on pavement and see the outline of death. The only sane reaction is gratitude because the most beautiful game in the world would be impossible without it.