Pool lessons

[Zues126]

Thank you all for taking the time to read and reply!

Coconut, thank you for sharing about your father. I will tell you this much my friend; in my entire life, some of my favorite memories with pool are the quiet times. Sharing some table time with a friend on a Saturday afternoon. Playing some music on the jukebox. Rolling them around for a few hours and trying to scramble over the obstacles that we create for each other. Then shaking hands win or lose in that manly way where we know we just shared some deeply quality time but we don't really need to talk about it, we can just do it again in a month or two. It sounds like your father found the same peace and fulfillment I do from the game. Who knows, maybe his spirit is still racking them up somewhere in the sky and giving you a big thumbs up right now. What I do know is I'm giving him a thumbs up from here.

Ginger, yes, I know of Scott S. The pool forums I read actually featured a news feed about him potentially getting into a big money match so I learned a little about him reading that thread. It is a very cool story and I'll let you know if he wins should that match go down, or if I ever run into him on the tables.

V, Dawn, PP, always nice to hear from you. I'm not sure if I'm approaching zen or re-discovering my insanity, but either way it feels like I'm home.

I am proud to share that my US ranking just cracked the top 30. The 7-1/7-0 wins over a highly ranked world champ really moved the needle more than I expected, combined with some other good performances lately. I'm pretty excited about this.

Here's why. At the table, there is often a bully and someone that is being bullied. There is one guy that is trying to beat the other guy, and there is one guy trying not to get beat. All of my life, I've been the guy that is being bullied on the pool table. Whether it was because I was the youngest child and all of my brothers and sisters were older than me by years and always beat me at everything. Or whether it was because I struggle with belief and everyone else always looks better and more confident and stronger at the table than I feel. But I've always felt outmatched by the top players. And they often act like real bullies, sneering if I am winning, making snide comments, offering to play me for thousands of dollars, things like that.

So when I play I am not trying to beat the other players, rather my goal is to defend myself. All I want to do is to be unaffected by their attitudes and intimidation tactics, and to play on the table the way I do on my practice table at home, to treat it as just another practice session. And the most satisfying thing in the world is that even though they look like Goliath and I feel like David, when I just shut my feelings away and don't allow them to trick me into surrendering and giving up, and instead I just keep working hard, staying focused on the task at hand...all of those skills I have worked on for so long hold me up, and sometimes I look back and have wins I never would've believe I could achieve. Normally in life belief comes and success follows, but for me it's been the opposite. I grind my way to high levels and then I truly can't believe some of what's happened for me. So to see my rating climb is incredible, because many of those I'm rated next to or even above make me fearful and intimidated, yet there I stand. Very satisfying and validating.

On to books. Sunny, I think we've talked about reading to our partners before. I tried that with XW but she wasn't into it and would inevitably fall asleep on page 1 or 2 of whatever I picked up. Yes, I agree it's the most romantic thing in the world. I haven't been reading personally as much as I used to, but when I find the right page turner I can still burn an evening here and there.

Hope you guys have a great day!