Splash No. 215 - That Dog
That Dog
Lately, one of my favorite phrases in sports is questioning whether a particular athlete has “got that dog in him.” To possess a dog within oneself is to have immense mental toughness and an unnatural tenacity, especially in big moments. There are certain players who are defined by this sort of dogged insides, like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, and certain players who indubitably lack any sort of canine within them, such as Ben Simmons, who is best known for losing a series against the Atlanta Hawks after being too afraid to dunk on a player a foot shorter than him.
In his blog Raptitude, David Cain talked about his mentality indirectly:
“Whenever interviewers ask an athlete how they endure training in the searing heat, or how they bounced back from a torn ligament last year, they always say, “You just have to want it bad enough.”
The follow-up question they never ask is, “How do you get yourself to want it bad enough?” I assume the athlete would shrug and say they don’t know, they just do.”
There are some things in life that one must accept about themselves — for me, I wake up every day and look in the mirror fully aware that that dog does not reside in me. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted anything the way that most athletes seem to, or other people who accomplish great and impressive things. Even when I have worked hard towards the goals that I’ve accomplished, I’ve rarely felt like my intense desire was making it easier for me to achieve my goals. More often, it was external motivation or enjoying the process or building a habit that would get me there. Goals don’t feel that interesting to me in general, not as much as momentary joys that come from enjoying the process of doing something. In contrast, having that dog in you seems to require a level of single-minded focus on a single thing that I’m not sure that I’ve ever experienced.
I feel much less conviction about my love for poetry than I used to. I wrote part of my first poem in months a few days ago and I’m not sure if I’ll finish it. A little while ago, I would sometimes imagine publishing a chapbook of poems. This isn’t to say that I’ve given up poetry at all, just that even my fantasies about the hobby never drove me that strongly. Writing is the same way at times, but it’s become such an integral part of my routine that I couldn’t imagine stopping. With these activities and many others in the past, I’ve never been to have an unshakeable focus on any one thing.
Rather than focusing on reading and writing poetry, I’m into running again. My focus has shifted once again, and now I can imagine running a marathon that I’ll likely never do. I’ll spend my days extolling the wonders of running, listening to podcasts about the sport, and watching highlights from races. Who knows how long this will last, and how soon I’ll be onto the next thing or the previous thing! Instead of that dog, I think I hold some migratory bird in me, one that is seasonally attached to different activities, moving from one to another seamlessly without fail.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - july 22 - another month in the books!
ARTICLE - "He’s Baseball’s Only Mud Supplier. It’s a Job He May Soon Lose." by Dan Barry - even mud has a story
POEM - "Tea for You, Too" by Ron Padgett - things are all right with me, relatively speaking.
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Not doggedly,
Nikhil