I have a dream, in which I am writing a novel. In that dream, the words tumble from my fingers in
coherent sentences, completely immersing my audience in a world that challenges the way that they have thought about their very existence.
In reality, the words flow off of my fingers in drubs and drabs and only briefly engage my tiny audience in bad puns and derogatory self deprecating humor. Such is the world of reality and self delusion.
Nowhere does reality collide with self delusion more than in the world of golf. In that fruitless endeavor, every player thinks that they are a far better player than they actually are. Standing over the first tee, the typical player waits for the fairway to clear, only to hook the ball into the trees about fifty yards away. A chip from thirty yards off the green flubs to about eleven inches from where the ball was struck. A three foot putt stops two feet short of the hole. All of these sad attempts are immediately followed by various four letter obscenities and a thrown or dropped club.
Such self delusion begs the question “Why?”, as in “Why oh why do you get so pissed since it is obvious that you totally suck at this?” It’s true in virtually every endeavor. Playing a musical instrument, playing a sport, some obscure hobby, a test a school, and on and on. Everyone thinks that they are better at something than they actually are. And then when they fail, oh my God! It’s as if the world ended, and almost always someone else’s fault. So again why?
I think that it all goes back to yer mama. When you failed as a wee tot, didn’t you look to mama to pat you on the head and comfort you? Mama was always an enabler. We are engrained with the thought that failure is not an option from a very young age. Take that and the genetic coding to propagate the species to survive and you have the perfect recipe for an optimist. Only by adhering to the Eastwoodian philosophy of “A man’s got to know his limitations” can we successfully navigate the whitewater raft ride that is called life.
As always, I must leave you all with my insights about what I have just enlightened you with. Well this time, I just need to rant a little.
You probably think that this little missive is about the sorriest attempt at eloquent prose as you have ever read. That is just the fault of your puny weak loser mind trying to comprehend the eloquent insights that I have just espoused. You snotty nosed heap of parrot droppings! I feel sorry for the future of our world.
