Life in the Pasture

Cobb on golf:

The game? A splendid waste of time and space, if not energy. An exercise in frustration with few rivals in any organized activity.

Actually, Cobb was writing about Tiger Woods and the small sphere of celebrity that shepherds our culture.

And thus the entire consciousness of average Americans are almost never more than a car bomb away from total destruction.

Which seems a variation the The Revolver Law. Destruction or salvation, dependent on who the car bomb eliminates.

Why is this so? Because we act like sheep. We allow ourselves to be shepherded, to play life safely and delegate tough choices to a small sphere of celebrity. It is better to belong than to be wrong. Keep to the fairway.

It is not hard to see politics as Cobb sees golf. A frustrating exercise that drains our energy. Because politics is essentially shepherding. We elect collies and sheepdogs based on their barked promises to keep the other sheep in line.

But people are not actually sheep. There is life and expression outside the fairway, in the tall tasty grass. We live through the explorations of celebrities. Tiger went off the fairway and culture can’t get enough of the details. From the safety of the herd, we judge and seek justice for grievances that are not our own. We give the dogs more power.

We want to be protected from our own nature. There is a little Tiger in each of us. His fall reminds us of our own imperfection. And what is more terrifying than being confronted with one’s own shortcomings?

Realizing that you’ve spent your one precious life sticking to the fairway. Realizing that you’ve become comfortable within a cultural amusement park, a sanitized and manicured reality. So you keep your head down and swallow the blue pill.