Bowling Notes 9/17/2019

Game 1

Everybody except for me is commenting on how slick the lanes are. I cannot dismiss their observations, but why can't I share them? Descartes famously examined this question and came up with his "solution:" I exist but any and all other beings/things in the world may be illusions. Descartes's solution is logically sound on a fundamental level but practically useless. Why, if I alone exist and everything around me is either a creation of my own thoughts or an illusion cast by some malignant force, continue living? When no experience are "real," what is the point of experience? This is where Descartes's reductionism falls apart. Either we have to accept the "reality" of our senses or life has no meaning. Even if we start with just our thoughts, we can build analogies from there and recognize that other 'beings' appear to act and respond to external forces the same way we do, and therefore are also likely to be experiencing the same stimulus that we experience. There is life, in other words. Still, just because there is life outside of our own mind does not mean we all have the same experience or interpretation of experience. What is bitter to one person tastes fine to another, or what are acceptable bowling scores for one team may not be acceptable for another team. And in our shared reality, these were not acceptable scores.

Game 2

Brandon had a pin tilt roughly 30 and then stand back up, and was genuinely hurt by this - this, of course, being nature's indifference to his bowling score. We have all experienced this pain before, and we all process it in our own manner. Is this shared experience what makes us work as a team? Is shared trauma a solid foundation on which a relationship can grow? Will the relationship have anything to bind it together once the trauma is processed and left in the past?

Game 3

The jukebox has come on and exclusively playing Kanye West. Kanye's very emotional yet very egotistical (i.e. cocaine-fueled) songs providing a suitable backdrop for this game. 'Flashing Lights' plays as our game comes together, but what have we lost to get here? We can win this game, we can win this whole league, but what do we lose to get here? What, and who, have we left behind to taste this success? And not even to taste it! To glimpse it, yes, but this is only week 3! We can beat these top teams tonight; we can beat these top teams next week, even, but to think that this immediate moment has to last forever is misinformed.