Bill has a dream.
Since I’m creating this piece, I can make his dream come true.
Voila…
Sorry… old joke.
Let’s get more specific. Bill wants to master his tennis.
The problem is… he doesn’t know how to do it.
He looks to others who say they do. Happily, they have all kinds of magical information.
For sale, of course.
Bill buys as many as he can afford.
And… Nothing.
Ok… that’s not entirely accurate, he does “get better”. But, no better than all the others who are also trying to run down mastery.
Practice, practice, practice… grind… forever. It never comes to an end. Are you still practicing how to walk… or… do you have it figured out?
What? You think tennis is different? From where did you get that idea?
Does “it” get you where you want to go?
Bill doesn’t see it yet, (he he may never see it) but he has been recruited into a fraternity. The society of struggle.
The society prescribes the game to Bill… in the same way that it prescribes it to everyone.
It indoctrinates Bill into a belief system that’s composed of the stories… opinions… legends and myths of the “experts’ who serve the society.
And the society conditions him to follow their rules. Work harder. Fight harder. Compete harder. Suffer most.
Rules breed insincerity. At this moment millions of people are inventing hard work and suffering for themselves… solely to benefit from it.
The society of struggle is a river that flows away from mastery.
Bill… and 99% of the others in it, will never attain mastery.
In any other walk of life this would be unacceptable. A medical procedure with a 99% fail rate would be banned. An airline with a 99% fail rate would…
I don’t even need to say it.
But in the “performance” world, the method isn’t abandoned… or even questioned. The customer is. Bill… and all the others of his ilk, just don’t have what “it” takes.
The map isn’t the territory
Bill’s faith in “experts” kept him from exploring the game.
He pursued the same game, in the same ways as everyone else.
The explainer in me wants to dig into the social conditioning behind why he did that. But the realist in me wants to pat the well meaning explainer on the head, and send him off to bed with a warm glass of milk… and a stern reminder that backstories are excuses.
Also, I promised myself that I wouldn’t get sidetracked in this piece, like I usually do… so… today, the realist wins.
Anyway, back to Bill. If he had set out to explore the game…
… to go wherever that led him…
… there’s a good chance that he would have discovered “the game is not what everyone said it is”.
Exploring this strange and desolate place would have inspired him to ask different questions. The answers to which would reveal a different path. A path available only to Bill.
The path to mastery.
Technical prowess is a shadow on the wall. Struggle is penance.
Mastery is understanding.
Being able to strip the game down to it’s core principles, and see it for what it Truly is. When you depart from this trail head, every step is True.
The trick, therefor, is arriving at that trailhead. Which means is that the “talent” required to attain mastery isn’t the ability to mimic prescribed technique… or out-suffer another. No, the chief requirement of mastery is the courage to do a thing so many are afraid to do…
Step off the map…
… and into the unknown.
Ps. If you liked this piece, please tell everyone you know about it. Everyone you meet too. Also, you should buy my book: The Art of Holding Serve