As Good As It Gets

 ......and you wake up on Monday morning with The Boomtown Rats detonating louder than ever in your head.

When you watch a tennis match like the Gentlemen's Final at Wimbledon that was "played" on Sunday July 16, 2023 between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, it can make your life feel even more insignificant than it really is.

But you're not really comparing apples to apples, are you?

"Played" because they were not playing. That was a war. Just short of five hours of tennis - five hours - between two men at the height of their game. Sublime.

Competition at that level and that intensity leaves you breathless. It also obliterates your life - the only world that exists is the one on Centre Court.

Until it is over. Stunned, you stagger to your bar and grab a bottle of whiskey and begin chugging in a heroic effort to regain the emotions and forgetfulness you just experienced. But it can't be done. What you witnessed was pure. A moment in time that can never be recaptured.

You wake up on Monday morning, hungover, you throw your pickaxe over your shoulder and head back down into the coal mine. Knowing full well that you are not a professional athlete, never could have been one, that you will never earn that kind of money and achieve that kind of fame. So why beat yourself up?

Because you don't like where you are and you don't see a way out. But that tennis match sparked emotions in you that mimicked what you would feel if you did find a way out. Ultimately, emotions that are futilely experienced.

Hence the conundrum of sports. We watch to be thrilled, we dream about the money they make, we lust for their fame, the adoration they get - it's a complicated mix. And we love it. It's a religion.

But the coal mine awaits.

Compartmentalization is key. You must be able to distinguish between a dream and reality. But reality is such a drag. Still, losing yourself in the moment extends your life. Kills anxiety. Numbs self-loathing.

And reality is reality. It is where you are forced to live, like it or not. So you grab the pickaxe and start chipping away at your job and the rest of your life.

And look forward to the next moment in time, as elusive and unpredictable as that may be.

That's as good as it gets.