Thread by @KapilGuptaMD

MASTER, OR NOTHING

A player Wins

He becomes the new World Number One

Then he "celebrates."

I find this to be pedestrian

Almost shameful.

The fact that he is celebrating means that there was a possibility that he might not have won

The fact that he is celebrating means that he won by "competing"

Doing so by competing means that he might not win the next time

What is there to celebrate?

If we look closely at precisely What he is celebrating

We find that what he is celebrating is that the breaks went his way

That he got fortuitous bounces

That the winds of fortune might just as easily have swung in his opponents favor

This is what he is celebrating

My ways are strange to the world

I am a hermit and a recluse

I have been this way my entire life

This world has always been foreign to my way of understanding

I have always felt as an outsider in this world (and proudly so, I admit)

It has always been beyond my understanding to see a player "celebrate" because the bounces went his way

Or because the winds of fortune favored him rather than his competitor

He essentially "won" a high-stakes coin toss

What is there to celebrate?

My sons have holed out from the fairway many times in their golf tournaments

My older son made a hole-in-one at the famed 11th hole at the Country Club Of Charleston

A hole on which Ben Hogan made a 13

The gallery roared

His playing partners congratulated

I remained silent

How we know something is genuine is not when we find a way to subdue a feeling

But when the feeling does not arise to begin with

Excitement did not arise within me in the slightest

Because we had not found a System to do it every time

"Luck" does not excite me

Mastery does

Once a player can do something Every time

Once he can Guarantee an outcome

Once he Owns something so completely that he no longer needs to practice

This is worth devoting a life to

This is worthy of "celebration"

For then he has become a Master

These are the only humans I take on

For, whatever the reason may be, this is the only thing that interests me

I don't throw darts at a board and become "excited" to hit the bulls eye

I look for a System to hit the bulls eye every time

If am not a Master

I am nothing

Namaste