Yesterday I made some time with a good friend and went and played golf. It's always been something I enjoy, it takes me to a place outside of the usual... To a place I consider somewhat serene, believe it or not.. Yes, I may be with a friend in the moment, we may be engaged in a competition of sorts in the moment.. But I am more alone in the moment. I don't like caddies, I prefer to pull my own bag. Plus their recommendations and know-it-all vibes really annoy me. Thanks, but no thanks. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. So for the bulk of the game I am just alone.. Trotting along, I am just me. I walk different. I feel different. I feel space, the physical aspect of there being lots of space around me even transcends to my state of consciousness, I feel a sense if freedom.. All to myself, all to what I want to or will do with it.. It's just.. Me. The time for inner monologue, even vocal monologue.. Hell, no one is going to hear you speaking to yourself in the middle of the park on the 13th hole! I realized how much I appreciate that time.. That time to just be me. That time to not have my phone ringing. That time to not worry about anything at all apart from my next shot. That time to just be.
Then we finished the first nine, my mate and I. On the break we sat for some breakfast. An elderly man walked past, and like a groomed man, a cultured one (or so I think), one who genuinely upheld the spirit of how one behaves at a golf club.. Happy, chatty, sociable.. I greeted the guy, "good morning sir", he smiled at us and his response was "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!! How are you doing this morning? Are you enjoying your game?".. For a moment I paused, I'm not used to seeing people this happy about literally nothing. Do people regularly celebrate a greeting this much? I know it's good manners at the club to be friendly, but this much? There's something wrong with this guy, I thought. In my brief moment of surprise, as the man walked past, my friend answered him, "we are enjoying it sir, are you?" Then he stopped dead in his tracks, with a peculiar smirk on his face, not looking directly at his respondent but more gazing into space, into nothing. As if he was searching for the right answer. But who searches for a right answer to a question like that? "Yes I am, thanks." And get on with it, that's what I thought, but not this guy. He strode backwards, leant on our table with the brightest smile I've seen in a while and said with a chuckle, "at my age, you enjoy anything, you'll see one day!" Wow. Blank. Wow.
Then I thought to myself, what is it that I do enjoy? Must I wait to be that old to enjoy it? Why is it that enjoy whatever it is that I do? And what are the conditions, circumstances or even repercussions that i do. Am I wrong for enjoying it? I mean, the thought that I consider there to be repercussions must mean there's something wrong, right? Is it me? Am I not meant to be enjoying what I enjoy? What does everyone else think? You get these stereotype comments everywhere, "you're such and such so you can't be doing certain things", but who says though? The bulk of the things I take time to enjoy I find myself making a concerted effort to make time for them. And half the time guilt lingers. For some reason. "Is this normal?", I think to myself? Must my life be a barrage of excuses simply to make time for something I enjoy.. Each time? Is life really that serious? Well, fuck, of course life is serious... But we're not robots are we? I'd like to think this is where the awkward best friends who mostly come across as bad guys to everyone but you will say, "dude, live a little!" Bottom of it all, objectively, it got me thinking, what that old man said. What is it about my life that I can't declare at my age I'd enjoy anything? What is it that you enjoy? Do you know why? Is life passing by while you contemplate why you must or must not be a certain person that you're not? My advice, play golf, or whatever it is that gives you that time alone to be just you and you... Have an inner monologue, worry about no one for a minute... Think. What makes you say "I enjoy doing this."?
