Posted 3 years, 2 months ago mid-morning by oso
El Mas Chingón has an excellent post on being young and poor which has inspired some pretty excellent comments … as well as this series:
This past Christmas my grandmother gave me the book The Brothers K by David James Duncan. I haven’t written about it on here yet, but were it not for Tom Robbins and his lovable characters in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, I am pretty sure The Brothers K would have been my favorite book of 2005.
In particular, there is one scene that I can’t seem to shake. The father of the family - a former up and coming minor league baseball player until a work-related accident forced his premature retirement - was explaining to his son about strike zones. Actually, he was showing his son, Kade, how to paint a strike zone on an old matress to serve as a practice target for a pitching mound he constructed behind the house.
Kade was surprised when his father - rather than painting a carefully measured geometric shape - began slapping paint haphazardly on the mattress with aggressive slaps of the brush. His father explained [and I paraphrase]:
Kade, the first thing to know is that a strike zone doesn’t exist. Only strike zones exist. And it’s not what’s between the batter’s knees and shoulders. Strike zones are in the ump’s head. That’s what you gotta figure out. I could stand out here all day throwing balls at a black rectangle and it wouldn’t mean the damndest thing ’cause I don’t know who’s looking.
The metaphor is obvious and is carried throughout the book: our success in life isn’t judged by some objective strike zone. No. Our success is judged by those who watch us and those who judge us. And maybe most importantly, those who we let judge us.
As I have written before, almost all my life I have been told that I do not work up to my potential. “The talent and intelligence are there,” my teachers and school counselors and professors and relatives and even friends would tell me, “but something is holding you back from success.” I would always respond to their criticism with either stoic apathy or defensive anger, but never with an articulate explanation. So that’s what this series is. My own best intention of explaining why I always seem to pitch outside of their strike zone.
To be continued …
Oso, I’m looking forward to reading your perspective on this issue. I agree with you in many aspects it’s almost eerie. Perhaps, I am being too hard on myself and we should look at what we have accomplished and not what we haven’t–however, I don’t know if I pitch outside the strike zone. Once again, I’ll wait for your words. In the meantime, man, you just keep giving me and giving me more books to put on my list. Am I ever going to catch up?
great phrase. we should also be careful not to judge ourselves too harshly. we have to live for ourselves and not for others. we should also be careful not to focus on everything we do not have, that would depress anyone. measuring yourself by what others have is also not being fair to yourself.
can’t wait for the next installment…
Puedo escribir en español?
bueno, nada màs saludarte y decirte que me guista tu blog.
…and people wonder why I love baseball
I’ve been feeling that El Mas Chingón is actually really Chingón… go figure!
Anyhow, I was thinking that sometimes we’re afraid to do something because we’re afraid of what the people we let judge us will say.
Or sometimes it’s easier to let others do the hard work. Sometimes, even though you know it in your heart, it’s hard to do the right thing. Or the thing you’re meant to do.
Procrastination is a bitch.
Man, I thought this was going to be about baseball. You know who else is not living up to their potential? The Dodgers.
Anyway, I read through that other post and now I’m even more intrigued about this series. One of the things I’ve been realizing lately is that I’ve done most things in my life the way I’m supposed to, and I’m not sure it’s made me happy of comfortable. I went to high school, did well. I went to college, did well (not without plenty of slacking off though). I got a job afterwards. Did that for a couple of years. Then I went to grad school, and guess what? Well, there’s missing ganas and I know the professors who were so excited by my transcript, personal statement, letters of rec, and test scores must be thinking, what happened to all that potential?