What, in life, isn't a waiting game? Too much of life involves waiting it seems, but games, literally, involve waiting: baseball and cricket, definitely--and chess (nothing like a quick game of chess, eh?). In them all is this grand, finely nuanced dance, an intricate psychological joust, which appears as movement within rules. The dance demands waiting. And there's fishing or racing, or sky diving (it does well not to wait too long on this last one). And the ski jumper: after the launch, there's that long hang out in the air while the ground comes up.
I also think of surfing--another waiting game, a game of paddling about, anticipating the big wave...which may never appear. And when a monster builds up and begins to roll up on itself and rise, when it's lifting your board on the slope of that swell, as with every other life event, there's the opportunity, the test, and the chance to perfect your skill.
Waiting is not just in sports: it's in painting, performing music, acting, writing a poem or a novel. It's all a waiting game. The paint must dry, the composition come right, the comic line delivered after the right pause, and after being written, the book must be published. It's a wait.
But even before any waiting game, there has been a previous wait. I mean, when you are learning the game -- albeit by "playing" at it as an amateur. There's the wait until some proficiency develops, a time before we hang our skill out there for public inspection.
Ernest Hemingway tells in A Moveable Feast about showing Gertrude Stein a story he wrote. It was a story, he said, that was not fit for public reading--not crafted well enough for him to publish. Stein remarked that it was like a painting: it can't be hung and cannot be bought by someone else to hang. She said he was wasting his time, that he must not make things inaccrochable (literally, "unhangable": that is, not made well enough to hang in public, or be sold to anyone). To make a thing that is not fit -- to play a game that is not at one's best skill -- is inaccrochable, a waste of time. It's a waiting game (full of practice even so) until we can present our skills as fit and accrochable (hangable), fit to be presented publicly.
Oh. And the criticism along the way? Someone who succeeds will take criticism -- not without chewing, mind, but will see it for what it is. It's always invaluable. How so? If the advice is wrong, we'll see why only if we listen to it, test it, and then learn why it's wrong. If it's right, we'll have learned why and be all the more ready for the wave.
Even so, some people will insist.... We've all seen them. Those (perhaps ourselves in a deluded moment) who believe their skills are no less than brilliant when they are, simply, inaccrochable. You'll see them on something like "America Idol," gagging and then ragging the judges after a performance only preferable to fingernails on a chalk board. They can't ride the wave; they have no skill. They try to hang it out publicly but are not only devoid of talent and skill but -- as bad -- cannot accurately evaluate their own (in)abilities. They ain't got it. They may have other talents to develop and excel in, but this one...?
Waiting is not just in sports: it's in painting, performing music, acting, writing a poem or a novel. It's all a waiting game. The paint must dry, the composition come right, the comic line delivered after the right pause, and after being written, the book must be published. It's a wait.
Worth a Wait; Worth a Risk
But even before any waiting game, there has been a previous wait. I mean, when you are learning the game -- albeit by "playing" at it as an amateur. There's the wait until some proficiency develops, a time before we hang our skill out there for public inspection.
Ernest Hemingway tells in A Moveable Feast about showing Gertrude Stein a story he wrote. It was a story, he said, that was not fit for public reading--not crafted well enough for him to publish. Stein remarked that it was like a painting: it can't be hung and cannot be bought by someone else to hang. She said he was wasting his time, that he must not make things inaccrochable (literally, "unhangable": that is, not made well enough to hang in public, or be sold to anyone). To make a thing that is not fit -- to play a game that is not at one's best skill -- is inaccrochable, a waste of time. It's a waiting game (full of practice even so) until we can present our skills as fit and accrochable (hangable), fit to be presented publicly.
Oh. And the criticism along the way? Someone who succeeds will take criticism -- not without chewing, mind, but will see it for what it is. It's always invaluable. How so? If the advice is wrong, we'll see why only if we listen to it, test it, and then learn why it's wrong. If it's right, we'll have learned why and be all the more ready for the wave.
Even so, some people will insist.... We've all seen them. Those (perhaps ourselves in a deluded moment) who believe their skills are no less than brilliant when they are, simply, inaccrochable. You'll see them on something like "America Idol," gagging and then ragging the judges after a performance only preferable to fingernails on a chalk board. They can't ride the wave; they have no skill. They try to hang it out publicly but are not only devoid of talent and skill but -- as bad -- cannot accurately evaluate their own (in)abilities. They ain't got it. They may have other talents to develop and excel in, but this one...?
A Martyr? It's Someone Who Has to Listen to a Saint.
But then...there's the talent you have. It's what you know and what you do. And you wait for it.
The main thing is to ride the wave when it arrives. If you don't, you miss the adventure, the vision, the grand moment, the memory, the proof of your skill, the contribution to the sport or the art. It's that moment you prepared for, trained for, dreamt of, and waited for. From there it is an obligation, an opportunity, a joy, a dream. Scary? Yes. Risky? Yes, indeed. But what else is life for? A poster I had in college said this:
A ship in a harbor is safe. But that's not what ships were made for.
Why is it so important to catch that moment? To catch the big ride? Well, there's a time coming when age no longer will allow you to ride the wave or even to wait for it.... That is when you'll only be able to remember that you once rode that great wave, when you were brilliant on that crest. When you did it. And -- best of all, really -- you added something to this life.
That moment on the crest is (to quote T. S. Eliot), "The still point of the turning world," when time stops and all the world spins by in the still of that moment. It's what the Romantics longed for: the "eternal moment." They longed to preserve it for all time, but didn't realize the moment preserves itself, crystallized within the memory. And it doesn't so much matter if someone else sees; it's important to know that you were honest in performing the task, meeting the adventure, and facing it as it appeared. That purity of moment is what you'll remember. It can be OK not to sign the painting because you know who did it.
That moment on the crest is (to quote T. S. Eliot), "The still point of the turning world," when time stops and all the world spins by in the still of that moment. It's what the Romantics longed for: the "eternal moment." They longed to preserve it for all time, but didn't realize the moment preserves itself, crystallized within the memory. And it doesn't so much matter if someone else sees; it's important to know that you were honest in performing the task, meeting the adventure, and facing it as it appeared. That purity of moment is what you'll remember. It can be OK not to sign the painting because you know who did it.
Innovating on a Theme? Absolutely Cool!
Like any success in life, the great moment has directly to do with capability. And one person's monster wave is not another's. Even if all people are created equal, their abilities aren't.
So what's it mean?
Ride your ride. A friend recently had her first (very first!) screenplay made into a major motion picture, produced by a prominent actress-director; it went to Sundance as well as to other film festivals, and the film has now been purchased by Sony. She honed her skills in writing during the waiting game, and now? This huge wave. And she has shown her skill -- thoroughly accrochable -- on this crest. She's riding this wave and (as it's happily not a private success). It's a joy to watch.
If she had not taken the chance, risked the adventure, including the possibility that the crest might break over her before the ride...well. Now she's made a very publicly "hangable" statement, a lasting word for us all to hear and for herself to remember forever. She's brought something new out there that we all can admire and -- more -- something that lifts us a bit higher than we were before we saw it.
Ride it.
