Where Are the Children? The Medium Children?

From a distance, it looked purposeful and malevolent-- so many tennis balls hurtling over the fence-- but upon closer inspection, it turned out that the kids in Period 4 PE class were absolutely terrible at tennis, and the multitude of balls flying over the fence were mishits and botched serves . . . the irony is that East Brunswick often wins the county at tennis, and always has some players that are top in the state, but I think this is a consequence of the fact that young people are never medium at stuff anymore, they've either been trained since birth, taken the right lessons with the best teachers, and devoted many hours a day to their passion-- whether it be tennis or dance or violin or robotics-- or they're so daunted by the talented experts, kids their own age but with a skillset so advanced that it makes starting as a novice seem futile, and so they never try at all, resulting in a bunch of high school kids that can't hit a decent wheelhouse forehand, let alone a backhand, a serve, or an overhead smash.



5 comments:

zman said...

Sort of like waiting until marriage, right? You can't change your mind on that at 24 because you'll be too woefully untalented to hang with the talented experts.

Dave said...

william and mary woefully prepared us in that department

rob said...

i'm medium as fuck

Whitney said...

In 2016, tennis follows religion. Far fewer people overall are into it than in the generation prior, but many of those who are into it way, way into it, dedicating their existence to it.

Dave said...

i think that's true for a number of things now, especially the oboe.

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