Ex-Tabula Rasa

A story

A man I used to work for was once telling me about his love of golf. His adoration for the pseudo-sport was that of a man in the throes of a late-middle-aged new love affair.

“When you’re playing golf,” he told me, “you’re not playing against your opponent.”

He paused, possibly fearing that taking in too much of his wisdom at once would somehow addle my brain.

“You’re not even playing against yourself,” he said, smiling because he knew that he had rounded off my expectations at the pass.

“You’re actually playing against the groundsman who creates the golf course.” He stopped now, leaning back so that the full weight of this bombshell could be fully appreciated. He smiled like an old philosophy professor who had just told an after-class study group of the time he punched A. J. Ayer in Venice.

I looked him in the eye, and without blinking I said, “No, you’re not playing against the groundsman either.” My employer looked stunned, for nobody had ever questioned his wisdom.

I went on: “You’re actually playing against God. And you will never win.”

At that, my employer began to cry and asked me to hold him in my arms. A week later he had divorced his wife and revised his will so that all of his possessions would be given to the Welsh.