On transatlantic flights, it’s often my luck to be sat adjacent or behind families with infants and toddlers. Tantrums, staring contests, ripping out my headphones, all normal and acceptable. In an effort to soothe myself, I’ll take the seat of my own mind. Watching and learning from the parenting. Some are force feeding airplane food until mental breakdown, and others allowing them to suck on a piece of cheese, watching an iPad indefinitely. I observe the blessed ones that get to play, running laps through the aisles, before coming home to the mother’s arms, humming them gently to sleep. How could I aspire to handle a force of nature, so far removed from nature, enduring this cramped metal box in the sky?
I enter this analytical state of mind while traveling to play futures tennis tournaments. An ongoing saga, maybe an addiction, that started a few years back in the wake of covid. After tasting the beautiful control and isolation of the lifestyle, my mind developed this analytical lens in response. The most empowered yet peacefully othered from humanity that I’d felt- I am my own coach, trainer, sports psychologist, nutritionist, manager, and so on. But as the triumphs became random, the babies would cry louder, and enough cramped windowseat armchair thought convinced me that it was a God complex power delusion. I didn’t have nearly as much control as I’d hoped over these things.
Tired from the burden of overthinking, I want to challenge this mind-lens with a heart posture. I reframe. I am my own parent, child, and adult as well. Inescapably responsible as a caretaker, torch bearer, and avatar of an invisible force. Present since birth, tamed, then harnessed through time. Increasingly evident and proven with every sunrise, heartbeat, and tick of the clock. Like a fruit that would have fallen to the ground anyways, I am interested in the proof of this force. To imagine the flight as a vector, a message holding the collected intention of 500 humans, traversing time zones, entering a liminal space, where the desires that fuel each individual life can be felt. What makes a baby stir, or causes me to sign up for tournaments in Egypt, is an insatiable appetite all the same.
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My post-college years have been spent reconnecting with my gut feelings and disenfranchised intuition, tinkering with basic needs and lifestyle choices. A Maslow’s pyramid approach to push boundaries while manipulating the frequency and volume of essentials. Multiple day fasts with sunlight and black coffee, 60 hour work weeks, recreational substances, bootcamp workouts, breathwork classes, beach walks with family and dogs, etc. All became experiments to see if I could push the right buttons to become a well balanced individual.
Ultimately, my problem with this approach was dissociation. A lack of grace and self abandonment occurs while using someone else’s textbook to strategize what is unique to you- The idea was to make something out of life. Cooking up a soup, even if it’s a World War II passed down trauma goulash recipe. The stove broken, the heat stuck on high. It’s boiling over and I keep burning my mouth trying to taste it. I’ve contracted long-covid, coming to terms with an insatiability beyond taste and smell.
My goals of living in a balanced neurotypical manner are down the garbage disposal. The personal research using outdated psychology has yielded none of the clarity I sought. My wants and needs are indistinguishably melted together, while the dread and panic that fueled my abandoned creation remain alive, oozing through the drain, climbing on the walls. I tried to cook them, now they’ve come to eat me. That’s what I thought, when in truth, they wanted an apology and I wanted forgiveness.
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On tour today, one of the most commonly spoken phrases amongst the players is “enjoy the journey.” Something easier said than done. Because no matter what phase of their career, they are hungry to win and fighting to satisfy. Enjoying the journey is a different battle. One to think and feel on a bigger picture. Beyond the ups and downs. Beyond a sticky temporal swamp of wants and needs, where the temptation to celebrate a win, to taste the fruit of your labor, will lead you into an endless spiral without any tangible progress.
Things quickly turn spiritual here. I think about focus, discipline, and the serpent’s role in all this. When speaking, it represents destruction, and the fall from what we aspire to. When biting its own tail, it becomes a symbol of unity and endless rebirth. Depending on how you play it, the dream of winning a grand slam could be the thing that enslaves or purifies you. I’m careful about this now.
Ouroboros reminds me that satiation is found within oneself. To not consume what you do, but who you are. Perhaps I’ll try eating myself too. My appetite could be a portal back to that liminal space, where desires of the highest order are given. Messages from the sky, taking me to the sky. Behind me, a possessed toddler, slamming the tray table into my seatback. Waking me up from a dream that was not mine to have. An invitation back to the present moment.
Graham Maassen
Graham Maassen is a professional tennis player and writer based in New York City.