The inner game

Out on the court with Nathan today, he inquired if I had read The Inner Game of Tennis. "Maybe 30-40 pages", I admitted. "I think that's really all you need," he responded.

Actually, I think the opposite is the case. Where matters of the spirit are concerned, by which I mean anything pertaining to the struggle to control ourselves and maintain equanimity in the face of... whatever stressor threatens to unsettle us, there is a need for near constant reminders of the basic principles of being in the world.

That is why people go to church, temple, bible study, mosque, 12-step group, over and over, day after day, week after week, hearing the same basic truths intoned. There is no new wisdom, but there is an ever-refreshing need for it.

I broke Nathan's serve at love the first game, and then he mine, so the first eight points of the match went to the returner of serve.  And then, at the beginning of his second service game, he won the point, and I swear there was the faintest glimmer of fear within me that I would crumble and lose. I was able to recover and remind myself to do basic things decently, and I beat him 6-3, like I usually do.

In the end, the inner game of tennis is just remembering that each point begins the struggle for self-possesion anew. It reminds me of how Kierkegaarde, at the beginning of one of his books, maybe The Present Age, talks about how each life inaugurates once more the struggle between good and evil, and that therefore there can be no progress in ethics. Just an eternal beginning at the beginning.