Tennis has always been my best sport, which doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. But compared to the many other sports that I’m hopeless at, tennis is the one that I’ve always been able to play passably.
When I turned 50, I took up the sport again, playing weekly with a friend who, like me, was at an intermediate level. The difference? She was hellbent on winning. Her hardcore attitude struck me as odd, especially for a ‘friendly’ activity – victory and sport have always been non sequiturs in my mind. In fact, it put me off playing. Our slogging and sweating were suddenly reduced to utilitarian terms. Perhaps this is to be expected in an achievement-oriented world, but my ‘goals’ were less overt, subliminal even: to clear my head from work/writing, to socialise while getting some exercise. In other words, nothing to do with tennis per se. Not surprisingly, our commitment to weekly matches waned as life became busier.
I picked up my racquet recently for the first time in nearly fifteen years. Our family frolic was meant to be just that – a fun jaunt around the court, a rally where everyone could join in. But thanks to the competitive gene, passed from their father, our (adult) children nearly took it to Hunger Games level. In any of my careers, I would have risen to the challenge without question, but not on the tennis court. And I think whatever made me opt out, like it did years ago with my friend, has a lot to say about my writing woes.
Most writers I know measure their success by outcomes, whether awards, publicity or publications. I’ve been fortunate to have had my fair share of these, which is nice, though none was ever sought as an end in itself. I think that’s precisely the problem. It’s not enough, at least it doesn’t seem to be, to want to write for its own sake. The entire industry and, by association, one’s professional worth or success, is geared towards a tangible outcome – a play, a book, a tv show or film, a painting, an event. Something that can be accessed and critically reviewed so we, the public, know whether it has value. Of course, artists want and need people to engage with their work; there’s no point sitting around, creating for our imaginary friends. For me, the creative process has always had (and probably always will) more weight, more value and more meaning for me than any outcomes derived from it. That’s precisely the problem, or so I thought.
What the hell does that have to do with tennis, you’re probably asking? Well, my game is starting to improve considerably now that I’m letting the racquet work for me. In other words, I’ve found the sweet spot – that magical space where shape, force, intent and purpose come together to do the job – in tennis and in life. The place where you’ve been striving for control but understand that you can get even greater satisfaction by doing less – when you stop trying to do things right in favour of doing the right things. I’ve worked out that I don’t need to try to make the industry work for me, nor do I need to work for the industry. My contentment, both personally and professionally, is interwined with states of being rather than end-results. In philosophical terms, I’m a deontologist, not a consequentialist. (Truth is, I’m smack-dab between the two but that’s a tale for another day.)
Finding the sweet spot didn’t come overnight. It’s the result of a long, occasionally torturous inner journey (think: plenty of portholes, dead-ends and detours, with a carjacking or two). I embarked on a full-on creative career relatively late, driven by the vagaries of life to reconnect with my younger, less encumbered, more creative self. But first, I had to find her. When she finally emerged, her essence surprisingly intact, I realised that she had changed fundamentally. That she wasn’t any one thing to be discovered. That she was who she is today – complex, curious, wounded, unpredictable, and more – because of what has led her here. That she was in the process of becoming.
Still is.
And most importantly of all, I realised that this is not only okay, but worth pursuing for its own sake.