Outdoor table tennis

🏓 What Table Tennis With My Friend Means To Me

It's never really been about the table tennis.

It's about showing up.

It's about presence.

It's about having somewhere to be that isn't a pub or an escape anywhere else.

It's about moving my body without turning everything into optimisation.

It's about friendship.

It's about remembering that not every meaningful thing in life has to be productive, profitable, or shared online even when we share it online after the fact because we genuinely want others to experience the joy we do playing.

Some of the best moments happen because two people decide to spend time together.

No big audience applauding, no needing validation win or lose.

Just presence.

In a world that constantly asks,
"What are you achieving?"
sometimes picking up a bat and playing table tennis with a friend is its own quiet rebellion from the God awful truth that we find ourselves in. (Don't get me wrong, life is wonderful, but deep down... we all know don't we? It'd be so much more wonderful without the powers that ought not be!)

A reminder that being fully alive isn't found only in the big breakthroughs.

It's found in ordinary moments too. (Not to take away that we are good enough to create some extraordinary ones too!)

The conversations between games, but sometimes between points that matter more to us in the moment because we forgot who was supposed to be serving!

The ridiculous shots.

The laughter. The frustration, the wry smiles, the pain of near misses. Coming back to see if you've truly riled the other or not!

The fact that, for an hour or two, you're simply there.

Present.

Participating in your own moment.

And perhaps that's what following through is really about too, just remaining present in the moments where win or lose, we're there to see it through. There's no bitter ending when two people come back to play.

And when it's not possible it leaves a void, as anything anyone feels is as joyous and rich as we find table tennis ought. So think on that... what is being stripped away from us all that is precious? Why do we continue to allow it to be so?

There's no easy fix, but some of the best moments of clarity I ever come to, come after a game of table tennis with my friend.

for that I am forever grateful

🏓🦋👊