Friday, September 16, 2011

The Next Strata Of Craziness


My left hand is killing me right now. I thought I felt a slight pain in it this afternoon but went to hit range balls anyway. I was having a bad session so I may have hit an extra hundred or so in a fit of frustration.

I've been playing golf and working hard on my game for over 20 years now. But if I develop say a chronic wrist or hand problem or perhaps suffer a gruesome injury there obviously I'll be done with golf and all that work and progress will in many ways be for naught.

These are sobering thoughts that beg the question - am I in fact using my time on this doomed planet wisely?

I met a guy yesterday who just moved to Queens from essentially fly-over country. He and his beautiful wife came to start a church here in New York. They have no money really, no other work lined up, they've two of their own and two adopted foster kids whom they homeschool,...

I asked and he said sincerely, "God will provide..."

Say what you will about this guy but he's got real balls and there are plenty of other brave souls out there doing what to the vast majority of us seems unfathomable. In fact I'm on my third reading in the past year(!) of The 4-Hour Workweek and I'm paying particular attention to the heroic stories of Morons who quit the grind and followed their passions.

Meanwhile I spend my scant free time smacking around meaningless little white balls - albeit further and straighter these days.

The more I ruminate upon it, the more I'm tempted to quit golf green-light my wife's desire to quit her lucrative yet dehumanizing Wall Street job.

It's probably time to man-up and see what we're made of. After all she and the kids (me too!) would be better off with her home than with a little more rapidly depreciating dollars in the bank.

Would such an overt act of financial self-destruction be crazy? Most certainly....but no more outlandish than say homeschooling my kids!

Again, check out that book if you haven't already. I'll say it again - I'M ON MY THIRD RE-READ IN A YEAR! It would be too weak to call it, among many other labels, a self-help book. More accurately it's a treatise on modern day *self-propulsion*.


This guy, Bill Rockwell, advanced very far in the 1997 World Putting Championship - beating numerous tour pros!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

1.) Any sober reflection of golf would surely lead to the conclusion that it is a silly, useless waste of one's precious minutes of life.

2.) Deciding how you want to live your life and then taking action will result in regret - that you didn't act sooner.

CaptiousNut said...

Wow...#2 is an uplifting thought!

Of course it's true. I look back on my life as it is/was and lament how many hours/days/years I wasted goofing around aimlessly. That is what I'm trying to steer my kids away from; that is one the of the main reasons why we homeschool them.

Taking responsibility for YOURSELF both past decisions and future ones is a scary adventure for 98% of earthlings. It's so much easier to work for someone else, to simply do what your neighbors do, and insulate yourself from self-analysis via an overdose of color TV and whatnot.

Anonymous said...

Yes it's very sad, but the 98% of earthlings you speak of live their entire lives being controled / contained / restrained by FEAR of one thing or another. Decide what you want and then move forward every day in that direction instead of a (false) safety free of uncertainty.

You will never regret it.