Uh, oh. I have to warn you that I’m getting philosophical again. Read on at your own risk.
What I’ve been thinking about is excellence. What it means. Why it’s important. Why we ought to try to embody it. I’ve also been thinking about how somehow―and this is the part that’s going to be really hard to believe―it’s connected with that World Cup thing everybody (well, almost everybody) was obsessing about.
Here’s how it all got started.
Realizing what our cat İpek does with her kittens only began to dawn on me the other day. I gave her the carcass of a chicken I’d roasted to chew on. I didn’t want to give it to her in the house, so I put it on the terrace outside in the garden. She gnawed on it for a few moments, but then picked it up in her mouth and brought it back inside on the carpet. “Oh, no you don’t,” I said, picking up the cat and the chicken and putting them both back outside. I shut the door and went back to the computer. About fifteen minutes later I heard meowing coming from the center of the room behind me, and when I turned to look, I saw that İpek had brought the entire mess back into the living room through the window and was quite clearly giving a lesson to her kittens on how to eat solid food. “Amazing,” I thought, and scooped up Mamma, babies, and chicken carcass, and dumped all of them rather unceremoniously on the rug outside the back door.
A couple of hours later, İpek followed me into the bathroom and began drinking—or rather, began trying to drink—some water from around the drain of the shower. Realizing she was thirsty, I went into the kitchen, got one of her green bowls, filled it with water, went back to the bathroom, and placed it on the floor. She drank a lot. I continued to watch as she finished and then went out of the bathroom. She returned carrying a kitten in her mouth and―I am not making this up—taught it how to drink water from a bowl. She repeated the process with each of the four. Not easy. They are pretty big now.
The thing that impressed me so much about what İpek was doing was how well she was doing it. Watching her operate, watching her be a mother to her kittens was like watching the Platonic form of cat motherhood. I mean, she was being a Mamma Cat par excellence.
The hard part, the philosophical part, is going to be trying to explain how all of this has any connection with the World Cup. Bear with me. It does.
First, I should tell you that I am not a football fan. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s Turkish football, French football, or American football, I just can’t get excited about watching a bunch of guys running around a field chasing after a ball. In fact, I don’t like any sports, except tennis, figure skating, and horse racing. I realize, however, that many people are football fans and so it was natural for everyone to be very excited about the World Cup. For weeks, most people talked about nothing but football. Whenever there was a qualifying match, almost everyone was glued to the television. Whenever Turkey won, the noise of the celebrations went on for hours. All of this was accompanied by fervent incitement from a quarter that shall remain nameless, and I noticed that both enormous companies and political parties somehow found it (conveniently?) necessary to help celebrate also, with their trademarks and names prominently displayed, alongside the Turkish flag.
This brings me to the point I want to make. It seemed to me that somewhere in all this brouhaha surrounding Turkey’s participation in the World Cup that winning it became the only thing that was important and how well the players played the game became only a detail.
It seems to me, though, that when playing a game, or when doing anything else at all, for that matter, there is a great deal to be said for doing something merely for the pleasure and satisfaction of doing it well. (1) Here’s a personal example.
Many, many years ago, I was living on a sheep station in Australia, in a lovely, old house. The house had a large dining room just next to the kitchen with a wooden floor. The boards were very old, and over time, all the varnish had worn away, but the wood was smooth, and had a beautiful patina. My budget didn’t permit me to consider refinishing the floor, but since I had spent a lot of time wallpapering and painting the room so that it would be a lovely place in which to sit and eat, it was important to keep it looking good. Accordingly, once a week I made a big bucket of hot soapy water (I always used real pine soap), and with brush in hand, got down on my hands and knees, and scrubbed the floor. I remember I always used to start in the left hand corner at one side of the room, and work my way all the way across to the right. Then I repeated the process starting at the right side going all the way across to the left. As I worked, I dried the part of the floor I had just scrubbed with a thick, dry cloth. Then, I applied paste wax to the entire floor, waited for it to dry, and polished it by hand. After I’d finished, I would sit down at the table to enjoy a cup of tea and contemplate what I’d done. The floor gleamed softly in the light that came through the windows. The whole space somehow exuded an incredibly soothing and reassuring quality. Everything (not just the room) felt rock solid and secure. And the smell was heavenly.
Now, I realize I probably should have worn rubber gloves to protect my hands, which haven’t been the same since those Australian years, but that’s not so important. What is important is that I learned at a relatively young age that doing something well was meaningful and worth doing.
Ah, yes. About the World Cup. It isn’t important that Turkey didn’t become the winner of the World Cup. After all, we made history by coming in third. The real heart of the matter, however, is the fact that the Turkish team played superbly well. In my opinion, we would all do well to follow that example of excellence: Whatever it is that you find yourself doing, take care to do it well.
There you have it. Back to the question of the quality of being. Again.
Enjoy your summer.
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1. For a wonderful example of what I mean see Column 1, April 2000 for a description of a fruit seller’s exquisite attention to detail.