Game. Set. Match. Who cares!

I have played tennis--more like hit tennis balls with a racquet (might as well be a racket!)--for perhaps a grand total of two weeks in my entire life.  That was two decades ago.  The tennis elbow that I am dealing with now is one heck of a delayed reaction, it seems!

Months it will be before this contraption goes into the trash :(

Anyway, it is Wimbledon time. I couldn't care.

I look up the news and scan the line about the latest from there only because I am a news junkie.  Even if I didn't look it up, I am confident that I would not miss any damn thing.

It wasn't always that way.

I recall Ivan Lendl's frustrations at Wimbledon, which led him to a sour grapes comment that grass is for cows to feed on.  It was on the tiny black/white television set that I watched Boris Becker serve his way through to championships as if he were born only to roll around at Wimbledon and to do nothing else in life.  Even before all that, I was upset as a kid when Bjron Borg lost his groove and then hastily retired from the sport altogether.  Tracy Austin I followed with my heart beating just a tad more for her.

The Hindu's  reports on Vijay Amritaraj winning even a set on the grass court was always exciting, and even more it was when another Tamil, Ramesh Krishnan (no, not the sports-crazy friend, K_Ramesh, who is my debating partner here at this blog) achieved quite some success at the tourneys.

But, with every passing year, I lost that much more of an interest in following sports. Cricket, badminton, hockey, football (soccer,) tennis, baseball, football (American,) ... one by one, they have all become additions to the graveyard of my past sports interests.

"Entertainment" is the very bottom-line.  I don't care to be entertained anymore.  If I am an active participant, then it is fun. But to be a passive spectator became such a bore.  A painfully boring experience.

I cannot understand anymore how I was once an excited spectator.  Once, when recovering from typhoid that was surely from the water at college, much against the doctor's suggestions, and my father's worries, not to exert myself, I sat up for hours to watch Wimbledon during those Becker years.   I should have sued Becker for compensation, for the relapse that I had!

And that compensation was another reason I quickly lost interest in entertainment.  It was an epiphany, that was further reinforced in graduate school, when I realized that I watch entertainers--be they in sports or movies or whatever else--and laugh and cry with "their" victories and losses, when, at the end of it all, I have lost time and money, whereas those entertainers had by then amassed quite some wealth.  They were doing that proverbial laughing all the way to the bank.  A fool and his money are soon parted, indeed!  I think I am wiser now.

Over the years, I have found a lot more entertaining activities to pursue.

My work itself is pretty entertaining--hey, other than that grading, my work is no chore at all.
Blogging is a whole lot of fun.
To know that blogging leads to stalkers is even more exciting!
Experimenting with cooking is fun, though when once the oil exploded and caught fire, it was no fun when it scalded my skin.
Traveling is one heck of an engaging entertainment, though expensive.
Walking is fun--there is enough and more in nature to entertain me.
Yesterday, when driving I spotted a few geese by the roadside.  Afraid that they might get run over, I slowed down to a crawl and passed them.  And watched the birds in my rearview mirror.  The lead goose checked both directions, and then led the group to cross the road.  Absolutely entertaining that was for which the birds charged me no money at all.

The entertaining "fruit soup" experiment yesterday!

To give up all those and more that I could do in which I am an active participant and to, instead, watch two people hit a ball back and forth, often with accompanying horrible grunting sounds as if they were suffering from acute constipation?  And then to read about the millions of dollars they earned for doing this!

Nah!  I am not entertaining any such thoughts!  Maybe later in life, when I am senile.

For now, if I need to be entertained, I will simply walk up to the river, looking forward to the show the geese and the ducks have planned for me!