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Feeling random
May. 31st, 2007 11:10 amThe way to navigate a crowd, or any cluttered field in constant motion, is to not let your eyes focus on any one thing. Instead, pay attention to how the negative space is changing, read the dx/dy of the emptiness between a million small things moving at random.
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Something I love about intense competition, whether it be baseball, poker, or Soul Calibur, is the (very) occasional moment of zen, when the next 5-10 seconds somehow become incredibly obvious. "Obvious" isn't even the correct word -- it's as if the near future is, in a way, already the past, immutable. Changing it would be not so much impossible as inconceivable.
In particular, while playing baseball:
* as a catcher, knowing that the next pitch would be crushed as my pitcher was in his windup. I think I actually said, "Oh shit!" as the ball left his hand. It landed over a 30-foot-tall fence about 350 feet away to dead center field.
* as a catcher, calling for a head-high fastball, knowing with every fiber of my being that the batter would swing and miss.
* at the plate, knowing that the next pitch would be a curveball, and that I would line it to right field for a base hit.
* in the outfield, running to catch the ball during the pitcher's windup -- before the batter made contact -- and ending up in the right place to pull in a deep fly ball.
__
Anyway. If you got this far, I'm curious if other folks have experienced something similar.
__
Something I love about intense competition, whether it be baseball, poker, or Soul Calibur, is the (very) occasional moment of zen, when the next 5-10 seconds somehow become incredibly obvious. "Obvious" isn't even the correct word -- it's as if the near future is, in a way, already the past, immutable. Changing it would be not so much impossible as inconceivable.
In particular, while playing baseball:
* as a catcher, knowing that the next pitch would be crushed as my pitcher was in his windup. I think I actually said, "Oh shit!" as the ball left his hand. It landed over a 30-foot-tall fence about 350 feet away to dead center field.
* as a catcher, calling for a head-high fastball, knowing with every fiber of my being that the batter would swing and miss.
* at the plate, knowing that the next pitch would be a curveball, and that I would line it to right field for a base hit.
* in the outfield, running to catch the ball during the pitcher's windup -- before the batter made contact -- and ending up in the right place to pull in a deep fly ball.
__
Anyway. If you got this far, I'm curious if other folks have experienced something similar.
