Infinite Jest
Autor: Thyciane Maia | Publicado: 2015-07-28T15:37:00-04:00


"It's the mornings after the spider-and-heights dreams that are the most painful, that it takes sometimes three coffees and two showers and sometimes a run to loosen the grip on his soul's throat; and these post-dream mornings are even worse if he wakes unalone, if the previous night's Subject is still there, wanting totwitter, or to cuddle and, like, spoon, asking what exactlyis the story with the foggy inverted tumblers on the bathroom floor, commenting on his night-sweats, clattering around in the kitchen, making kippers or bacon or something even more hideous and unhoneyed he's supposed to eat with post-coital male gusto, the ones who have this thing about they call it Feeding My Man, wanting a man who can barely keep down A.M. honey-toast to eat with male gusto, elbows out and shovelling, making little noises. Even when alone, able to uncurl alone and sit slowly up and wring out the sheet and go to the bathroom, these darkest mornings start days that Orin can't evenbring himself for hours to think about how he'll get through the day. These worst mornings withcold floors and hot windows and merciless light — the soul's certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at theend of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer. "

"This is how to play with personal integrity in a tournament'searly rounds, when there is no umpire. Any ball that lands on your side and is too close to call: call it fair. Here is how to be invulnerable to gamesmanship. To keep your attention's aperture tight. Here is how to teach yourself, whenan opponent maybe cheats on the line-calls, to remind yourself that what goes around omes around. That a poor sport's punishment is always self-inflicted. Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you."

"Be a Student of the Game. Like most cliches of sport, this is profound. You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard. Peers who fizzle or blow up or fall down, run away, disappear from the monthly rankings, drop off the circuit. E.T.A. peers waiting for deLint to knock quietly at their door and ask to chat. Opponents. It's all educational. How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away. Nets and fences can be mirrors. And between the nets and fences, opponents are also mirrors. This is why the whole thing is scary. This is why all opponents are scary and weaker opponents are especially scary.
See yourself in youropponents. They will bring you tounderstand the Game. To accept the fact that the Game is about managed fear. That its object is to send from yourself what you hope will not return. This is your body. They want you to know. You will have it with you always. On this issue there is no counsel; you must make your bestguess. For myself, I do not expect ever really to know. But in the interval, if it is an interval: here is Motrin for your joints, Noxzema for your burn, Lemon Pledge if you prefer nausea to burn, Con-tracol for your back, benzoin for your hands, Epsom salts and anti-inflammatories for your ankle, and extracurriculars for your folks, who just wanted to make sure you didn't miss anything they got."

"Schtitt's thrust, and his one great irresistible attraction in the eyes of Mario's late father: The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net's other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis's beauty's infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions. You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again.