Tiger Woods, Epiphanies

1.

Tiger Woods, the former World’s Greatest Golfer, has had a bunch of injuries and surgeries that seem to have pretty much ended his career. Tiger says: “I’m 39. There’s nothing to look forward to. I spend most of my time playing video games. Where’s the light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t know.”

Join the club, Tiger mate, join the club. ;-)

2.

Interesting turn of phrase used by the BBC when reporting the San Bernardino shooting this week: “Mass shootings are a frequent occurrence in the US – about thirty-five per month – yet this case is different. According to website Shooting Tracker, in the past year there have only been eight cases of mass shootings carried out by more than one attacker.”

Only eight in the past year. Barely one every six weeks. That is rare.

3.

The quality of my eyesight seems to be declining at a depressingly rapid rate, starting about four months ago when I came back to Europe. It’s especially disheartening as I had laser eye surgery about eight years back and was rather enjoying freedom from glasses and contacts. I wonder: is it a Spirit-based punishment meted out because I’ve turned my back on ‘soul matters’ and embraced Mammon? Too much computer time? An allergy to my job, like the one I had where my face swelled up, that was fixed by quitting? Something else (that I can’t mention here)? Or just one of those things that happens when you get older and the body begins its disintegration process? My grandma went blind; the words “skipping a generation” have certainly come to mind.

Funny thing is, I don’t feel that bothered. It might not be that bad not having to look at things. No more grey concrete, grey skies, grey faces. No more beauty in nature, too, but I guess I’ve had my fair share of that. Plus, it might make being with the right woman in a long-term way easier – please don’t think I’m not shallow (far from it). Of course, I’d miss being able to write, and my refereeing. Though perhaps the jokes one would be able to create around the latter would compensate.

I wonder: when blind people eat magic mushrooms, do they see all those infinite colours?

4.

I was staying at a friend’s for a couple of nights – he’s older; married; two teenage kids (all relevant) – and on the Tuesday he holds up these black boxer shorts and says, “are these yours?” “Not mine,” I say, “I haven’t worn underwear since February 1997.” “That’s disgusting,” he says. “Why?” “It just is,” he says, “why haven’t you worn underwear?” “Well,” I says, “when I was a boy my mum bought my pants, and when I left home I had those and then my girlfriend bought me some and that lasted me till I was about 20. Then when I was in America, living in San Diego – I remember, actually; I was sunbathing on the roof of the hostel when it happened – I noticed my last pair of boxers had just about had it. I didn’t know what to do; I’d never bought any. And I guess I had this sort of epiphanical moment where I suddenly knew I didn’t have to. So I didn’t, and it didn’t seem to make any difference to anything. I’ve just never had any reason to since, I guess.”

He thinks about this for a moment. Then looks back at the boxers.

“These are pretty nice,” he says, and tosses them in the laundry basket.

“I think they say you’ve been married too long,” I say, “when you find a pair of boxer shorts you don’t recognise in your own bedroom and all you think is, ‘cool, free underwear.’”

And we laugh.

5.

What are your favourite epiphanies this year? I can’t remember all mine but here are a few off the top of my head, all from Mexico:

i) I’m on a beach talking to a crab and saying, “what’s your story, crab?” and the crab says, “look at me, man: I just scuttle around from place to place for no apparent reason; I live a life characterised by anxiety and fear; I make a seemingly endless series of pointless and irrational decisions; and then I die, and none of it makes any difference or sense.”

“And by the way,” he says, “crabs don’t talk: you’re just projecting.”

ii) I’m up the mountain doing a barefoot hike to pay penance for massacring all the pets. I’m ten miles from other humans and seriously off trail in overgrown gullies and boulder-hopping up the river. Sometimes the boulders slip under my feet or roll onto my toes, and I consider what a sprained ankle or broken bone would cost me all the way out here.

But that’s not the epiphany: that’s just bragging. The epiphany is this: there are these spiky plants by the side of the path that I keep brushing with my leg. They’re pretty painful and annoying – but what I really notice is how often a light encounter saves me from a heavier one. How some slight contact and pain gets me paying closer attention, and invariably saves me from stepping right into the big spiky daddy.

It seemed sort of relevant at the time.

iii) Also in the mountains (earlier): I have no trail guide. I don’t know where the path leads. But I do know I’m going the right way, and that seems enough. Other people have trod it before. Only thing to do is keep going, and follow their lead. No need to think ahead. No need to know what’s around the corner. Just trust that I’ll get there.

(PS Does it sully it to reveal I later got lost? Or does that just add a juicy layer of irony, and perhaps even enhancement?)

6.

What are your favourite epiphanies ever? I can’t remember all mine, but here are a few off the top of my head:

i) Sitting on a hillside in Virginia aged 21 after a night (and several months, really) of fairly ridiculous shenanigans. Looking out at beauty and being struck that I was actually looking into a mirror. Not at what I was, but what I could be. Sounds a bit ridiculous typing it, but felt pretty real at the time.

ii) Standing at a crossroads in Waynesboro a few months later on the first day of my first attempt to hitch-hike across America. I’m heading west, of course, but there’s something weird about this crossroads, in that I can head any of north, south, or west – or even hop the adjacent railroad either north or south – and still be going in the right direction and reach my destination. Seems kind of momentous in the middle of all that randomness.

iii) Stepping out of a cinema in Wakefield having just watched The Truman Show and being struck by how little difference there is between the made-up world of his made-up world and this supposedly real world of our own.

7.

I can get my head around a lot of weird things. I can kind of understand why people commit murder, and why others seemingly dedicate their lives to shopping and TV. On a good day I can even understand the success of Miranda Hart (sort of). But one thing I’ll never be able to wrap my mindcogs around is bagpipes. Why anyone would want to listen to them. How anyone can actually tolerate them. Indeed, why people don’t instantly form a lynch mob and burn any prospective bagpiper at the nearest stake, like the hideous demon he is.

There was a bagpiper in Leeds this week. Playing Jingle Bells. With bum notes.

Even typing the words is making my skin crawl.

8.

And finally…

A cute puppy in Ossett this week brought joy and laughter to a little orphan girl by licking her until shiny gold H&M vouchers began to sprout from a nearby mulberry bush, totalling some four hundred thousand pounds worth of clothes shopping glee. Little orphan Annie was so thrilled by this – ie, that all her problems had been instantly solved – that she burst into a song that was fortuitously heard by Simon Cowell, who happened to be cycling past in his limousine. Cowell cried, it was that beautiful, and signed her up to his SiCo record label immediately. All her problems were instantly solved again!

The puppy then metamorphisised into a handsome prince – and definitely not in an American Werewolf/Howling stylee – and the two of them were married and will probably live happily ever after, because that’s what happens when two financially-viable people get together, and it’s supported by statistics too.

9.

Always end on a high note. ;-)