Golf as a Metaphor for Life

Just like in life, there’s a plan. (Drive it onto the fairway. Hit an iron to get you around the green. Chip it near the pin. Put it in.) And like in life, you spend more time trying to make up for errors, whacking it out of the woods and smashing your way out of sand traps, than adhering to your initial strategy. 

As in life, there’s a standard. It’s called “par.” And for the average player, it’s unattainable.

And as in life, all that really matters is that you enjoy the setting, the struggle, and company of your peers.

On Realizing You're Not a Genius

Until just a few years ago, I was convinced I was a genius. I would have bet on myself to win the Nobel Prize in Literature at some point during my lifetime. I was completely sure my first novel manuscript would be published and go on to have a massive impact on the contemporary literary landscape. Sure, I knew how few manuscripts manage to turn an agent’s head, how few beginning writers find success with their first novel attempt, but, in a classic pique of prefrontal-cortex-devoid youthfulness, I was sure that those types of concerns had no bearing on a genius like me. 

Well, as you might have predicted, that novel didn’t sell. I’ve had a few short stories published in small online journals, I’ve been accepted into a fully funded MFA program, and I’m generally satisfied with the trajectory of my writing life — but there’s been nothing to suggest otherworldly levels of extraordinariness. Who'd've thunk it?

Which leads me to today’s reflection: It’s easier to think you’re a genius when you’re young because the burden of proof lies in the future. When you’re older, the present bears that burden, and your essential normalness is painfully apparent.  

Try Turning Your Beliefs Into Arguments. You’ll See How Little You Know.

This post was supposed to have a different topic: how people of various political stripes fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of literature. I was to start by giving examples of how people on both the left and right incorrectly assume that literature is always directly edifying — that is, that the author transmits ideas and values directly to the reader. Then, I would explain how literature is more often indirectly edifying, with the reader learning from the material by placing it within various personal and social contexts. 

I had the whole argument laid out — all I needed were the examples. And that’s where things got tricky. I was sure self-righteous arbiters on the left, many of them cultural elites, were seeking to “cancel” works they considered problematic. Finding an example would be easy — I was sure there were dozens. 

First, I thought of Junot Díaz. He’d been canceled, right? But no — a little research showed that he was still widely read, and his work widely admired, despite allegations of sexual misconduct. Then I thought of Dr. Seuss. Hadn’t some of his books been taken off shelves for racist depictions? Yes, but that was different — the idea was to protect kids from harmful stereotypes. Besides, it was a matter of images, not words — hardly the perfect example for an argument about literature. I considered the Philip Roth biographer whose book had been ditched by the publisher after allegations of abuse, but the issue there seemed to be the injustice of the expected financial windfall rather than the harmful content of the book itself. Finally, I considered the criticism of To Kill a Mockingbird — but just for a moment, before recognizing that replacing a book on a syllabus doesn’t quite count as repressing it.

And so I was stumped. I couldn’t find a single example to support my argument, which could only mean one thing: My argument was flawed. 

And so I scrapped the plan for the article. Then, most importantly, I re-evaluated my views. 

***

Forming opinions is easy. Defending them is a whole lot harder. It’s in preparing the defense that we ensure our views are accurate. If I hadn’t set out to turn my vaguely held belief into a persuasive argument, I’d never have noticed its inherent flaw, its (rather consequential) detachment from reality. 

Joan Didion said, “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” Similarly, you can discover what you do think but shouldn’t by trying to explain it. 

P.S- I still find the distinction between “direct” and “indirect” edification useful — which is why I slipped it into the introduction.

Thank God for Music

Thank God for music — and I mean that literally. Thank you, God, for the unlikely gift of music.

I enjoy writing more than anything else in the world, but how profane the scratching of the pen sounds besides Schubert’s Ave Maria!

How grateful we should be that such sounds can affect us so!

A blessing, a blessing, a blessing.

***

There are lots of things like that, no? — Things that are absolutely fantastic and yet kind of weird, kind of inconsistent with the bare facts of life — the divine adornments that add up to make life so incredibly enjoyable.

We can imagine a world without those things, but it would be much, much duller. 

That sounds can be so pleasant, so exhilarating, so meaningful! 

That food can taste so good. 

Sex! Imagine a world without orgasms? Yes, thank God for sex!

Thank God that we've evolved in such a way —  and the world's evolved in such a way — that where we meet the world we can experience so much pleasure.   

Looking for more insights from an intrepid writer and committed travler? Follow Benjamin Clabault on Twitter, read his work on Medium, and check out his website for all the latest news on publications, appearances, and more.

Pro Soccer's Growing in a Way That's Reckless and Unsustainable - Just Like the Economy That Supports It

There’s one word that applies to almost every recent development in soccer: acceleration. The players themselves have become faster. Modern tactics are geared around speed. The best teams are those who can shift the ball around as quickly as possible. All this means that today’s young fans would hardly recognize the game as it used to be, with its lethargic build-up play and aimless backpasses. 

As the play on the field accelerates, so too does the game’s economic engine. Clubs are earning more money than ever before, and they’re determined to drive the trend as far as it can go. Competitions are expanding since every extra game brings the promise of additional revenue. Breaks are becoming shorter, and midweek matches are now the norm. When growth means money, the people in charge can't help but want more, more, more.

There are all sorts of problems with this approach. First, the obvious: The players are exhausted. Nobody can maintain their highest level while playing almost 100 games a year. The richest clubs survive by rotating their squads and playing the bench, but most teams aren't so lucky.

This dynamic only exacerbates the inequalities in most domestic leagues. Manchester City can buy 22 elite players and split the excessive game time between them. Smaller clubs can’t afford this type of depth, making a Leicester-like upset less probable with every passing year.

Then there’s the biggest problem of all: oversaturation. We fans love to watch the games, but we can’t tune in every single day of the year. We appreciate the sport’s breadth of competitions, with the combination of domestic leagues and international tournaments providing a variety that traditional American sports could never muster, but we’re not interested in yet another contest that doesn’t need to exist. When we hear about some new mini-league or cup competition, the response is no longer, “Oh, cool!” It’s, “Seriously? Another one?”

The poster child for the overexpansion trend is a proposal that hasn’t yet been implemented, but has the dollar signs flashing in FIFA’s greedy eyes: a biennial World Cup. For the moneymakers, it’s the obvious next step. The world’s most popular sporting event is wildly lucrative. Why make that money only every four years when you could make it twice as often?

But the response to the plan has been negative, with most criticism centering around an obvious point: The length of time between World Cups is what makes the tournament so special.

I distinctly remember each World Cup summer of my childhood. There was 2002, when I watched the underdog American team play Germany in the back of my father’s bait shop. Then there was 2006, when we watched local hero Clint Dempsey (he played for the New England Revolution at the time) score from our 6th-grade classroom. 2010 was an especially exciting tournament, with champions Spain employing a smooth, possession-based style that we tried our best to imitate in the backyard pick-up games that followed every match.

For moments to become lasting memories, they must be special, and a moment can only be special if it’s rare. When you take something special and multiply it, all you do is cheapen it. Hopefully FIFA gets the memo before it’s too late.

What’s striking about soccer’s excessive growth is that it seems like a metaphor for society at large. Faster, faster, faster. More, more, more. What hasn’t been going in that direction in the past two decades?

There’s plenty that’s good about growth. Economic growth lifts people out of extreme poverty. A more lucrative soccer landscape could see more investment in soccer programs for poor kids around the world (although one doubts the constant claims that this is where the money would go). Done right, growth is awesome. Done carelessly, it can prove fatal. 

Overextend the world of soccer and you’ll destroy the magic of the game. Overextend the global economy and you’ll destroy the planet.

The answer isn’t to develop an antigrowth strategy. We probably couldn’t check growth even if we tried. Today’s economy must expand to survive, and most thriving industries within that economy, soccer included, will expand right along with it. 

What we can do, on a societal level, is master that growth and demand that it remain sustainable — and that means making our voices heard.  

A Probably-Unoriginal Bare-Bones Post-Postmodernist Manifesto

If modernism broke everything apart, postmodernism confirmed that we can’t put it back together. 

So where are we now? All we can do is try to make meaningful art in a world we’ve already declared meaningless. 

Note, I said we’ve declared the world meaningless, not found it to be meaningless. The meaning might still be there — but then, it might not be. Our job as post-postmodernist artists is to poke around just in case it exists.

And it’s exasperating, of course, looking for something that might be nonexistent — but it’s the lot we’ve been given. 

How and where to search? That’s the question every artist today must answer for themselves.

https://benjaminclabault.webnode.com/

The Dialectic of Doubt

I recently had an essay published in Literary Traveler about existential doubt assuaged by a belief in literature as a life-affirming mythology.

The response has been positive, and I think I know why: The mental-emotional process I described is familiar to many readers. 

The cycle I outlined in the piece looks something like this: 

-An aching or vacuous sense that life is meaningless…

-Followed by a thrilling realization — “Wait, I find this thing (in my case it was literature) meaningful, so life must not be meaningless after all!”

After the piece was up on the site, like any vain writer, I re-read it in its polished, published form. I wasn’t surprised to find myself doubting my own conclusion. Literature might be a worthy activity, but there’s nothing ultimately meaningful about it. It doesn’t explain everything like many religions claim to do. It doesn’t satisfy that questioning: why, why, why? 

So, I thought, “If literature hasn’t actually supplied my life with meaning, then life IS meaningless…Except that it’s not — because I have my wife! And love! How can life be meaningless with love?!

“But then love is nothing but a biological function, something that keeps us living in units capable of survival. So, life is meaningless. But still, love is pretty sweet.”

Looking at these mental convulsions from afar, it’s impossible not to notice a cycle — or a dialectic of doubt. 

-Thesis: Despair.

-Antithesis: Hope that meaning resides here or there. 

Synthesis: An acceptance that life is ultimately meaningless, but that it’s full of all sorts of small delights in which we can construct provisional meaning. 

And, in a post-religious mind, this might be about as good as it gets — and that’s alright. Any thinking person is bound to doubt. Sisyphus can’t be smiling all the time, but maybe he can manage a laugh now and then. As long as he’s able to push beyond despair, as long as he can reach that next moment of provisional meaning, he’ll find joy — and hopefully that joy comes often enough to save him.  

Looking for more insights from an intrepid writer and committed travler? Follow Benjamin Clabault on Twitter and check out his website for all the latest news on publications, appearances, and more.