Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Just like that, in less than a day, I claimed the ping-pong championship title, only to promptly lose it, a shame surely as great as the ball is plastic. I had it–held it, in fact, and placed it on my desk for a scant few hours. The physical manifestation of this honor is a garish trophy of a pewter fellow wielding a pewter paddle, the face of which had long since snapped off. What you are left with, then, is a pewter dude in pewter shorts gripping a pewter handle in a heroic pose. But it was never about the object itself. It was about the idea behind the statue.

In retrospect, I won game one in all my matches, fizzled out in all my game twos, and then eked out a victory in game three, except for that third match. Was it overconfidence? Inability to sustain focus? I’m leaning more toward the latter, but the fact remains I lasted for only three matches: one to get the title, one to defend, and one to screw the pooch.

I’ll tell you this, though. The pressure changed the contours of the game and enhanced my enjoyment of it substantially. I’m hooked. Even when I was in the deepest, darkest point deficits, my internal dialogue merely confirmed the fact that all this was a heck of a lot more engaging than a plain vanilla match. I think I just like the competition. More importantly, I need the mental toughness that can only be cultivated in this crucible. I want a rematch! And I want to dominate. None of this “everybody’s a winner” or patchouli-laced bullshit of that nature. I want to crush you, then fashion a paddle from your bones.