Masters Swimmers Acting Like Triathletes

Mr. Thornton: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". I believe your wanting to justify your existence through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". WB Say what? Really, I don't know what this means, Mr. White Buffalo. I shall attempt to break it down to see if I can better understand your communique: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". Okay, we shall amend our ways. We shall forsake the Royal We and adopt the I point of view. I understand this part. Now, let us--damn!--I mean, let me move on. I believe your wanting to justify your existence... My existence, eh? Okay, I shall stipulate that when periods of profound melancholia recede, I do occasionally find myself semi-hoping to continue my existence, though the effort required to do so tends to be more than enough to occupy all my efforts. To both exist and also justify my existence presumes that I have reached a loftier rung on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs than I have, in fact, ever achieved. Still, I will not pick nits here. So okay, I am, in some sense, when not clinically depressed, both hoping to exist and in some ill-defined and muddlesome way justifying this existence (though I must admit I am already losing my sense of what you mean)-- through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. I think what you are saying in the first part here (personal attacks) is that I have been overly aggressive in my therapeutic intervention with Mr. Negative, maybe through my amateur psychoanalytic vivisection, or maybe through my mention of shoulder surgery and the ill-fated Longhorn steer tattoo, or maybe through both these things? Guilty! There is a famous saying that many successful captains of industry live their whole lives by: It is not enough that I succeed, my friends must fail! But what about those of us who are without success and without friends? What is left for us to adopt as personal mottos? Damn it! I am using the first person plural again. Let me rephrase, Mr. White Buffalo (and might I quickly and in passing congratulate you on picking as your personal namesake one of Charles Bronson's hokiest of all adversaries! I feel that you may be serving a similar purpose for me here!) Okay, so what motto do I live by, a person without success, and without friends? (Perhaps I am being disingenuous here. Like Willy Loman, I concede that in some quarters I am liked. But in no quarter am I well-liked.) Taking Occam's Razor to the liberation of a personal motto, I shall simply slice the original to fit my down-sized circumstances: It is not enough that I fail, people I have never met must be attacked ruthlessly on the USMS forums! Allrighty then. Point taken. Which leads me to the second element of the above highlighted passage of yours and its phrase "self rationalization of mediocrity." I suspect we have more or less covered this in our previous parsing. "Self rationalization of mediocrity" may mean something slightly different from "justification of existence," but let's face it (and here I am not using the royal we but rather am referring to me, Thornton, and you, Buffalo): given who we both know me to be (a good-for-nothing who would be doing everyone a favor by going away), these are pretty close to redundant phrases. I do not, however, fault you on your rhetoric, Mr. Buffalo! Far be it from me to suggest a fellow writer might benefit from trimming his prose! Rather, I concede that your redundancy on this matter is intentional and is used for emphasis, not because you are already running out of things to say in the second sentence of your comment! Which brings us now to the third part (embarrassment). Forgive me, but I am not sure who you mean is embarrassed. Are you saying it is I who am embarrassed by me? I doubt this is what you mean, but if this is your intent, please let me reassure you: I have almost never been embarrassed by anything I've done, no matter how idiotic and crude it may appear to outsiders, since a wonderful day in the spring of 1975 when I was a lifeguard in Georgia taking huge quantities of a drug called Triavil and met an 8 year old blonde girl named Catherine Person and together the two of us formed the "We love to make fools out of ourselves" club. I have adhered to our charter ever since and taken great succour from the invulnerability to embarrassment this has afforded me. Thus, please do not concern yourself with my embarrassment. I am probably capable of feeling this emotion, but I haven't actually done so for 35 years, and I am not experiencing it now. If, on the other hand, you are referring to your embarrassment, the way some people feel when they see a pathetic specimen ranting and raving and want to distance themselves from the spectacle, it would seem a very odd thing indeed to point out to the very same ranting raver that he (me!) has become a laughingstock and that it is embarrassing for you (Buffalo!)to even be in the proximity of such a spectacular dunderheadl! Would not a better strategy simply be to slink off altogether, not allow yourself to be contaminated by me, in the process ridding yourself of the contagion of embarrassment through proximity? Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. But Mr. White Buffalo, sacred calf of the Cherokee Nation, who would, in point of fact, have made a much more manly tattoo than a gelded overgrown veal steak on the hoof, but I am drifting--back to the subject at hand--Mr. WB, I thought I was arguing on behalf of master's swimmers who take swimming seriously and actually enjoy competing and take deserved pride in their accomplishments! Please, feel free to check out my vlog, which features, in amongst the admitted dross of my personal failings and physical/psychological ailments, nothing less than a shrine to the Leslie "The Fortress" Livingstons, the Cream "(S)He-Man" Puffs, and the Rich Abrams of our beloved sport! As far as doing this favor that you ask of me, perhaps you might consider conducting a poll to see if, in point of fact, the bulk of the posters here, including those I have admittedly tweaked here and there over the years, agree with your banishment. In fact, perhaps we could do a kind of reality show immunity challenge here and now. I shall agree to the outcome if you will--my wife thinks I spend too much time on the computer anyhow. Jim Thornton or White Buffalo: who do you want to go away for, say, the next month? You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". I concede I have been hypocritical in many matters, and I may be hypocritical in this one too, but I am not sure what you mean. Permission to go to extreme parsing? Permission granted by me to me. You (this refers to me, Jim Thornton) are (equal) a hypocrite (1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion 2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings) in your (my) self-indulgence (: excessive or unrestrained gratification of one's own appetites, desires, or whims) around the mediocre (: of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance), the opposite of those self-indulgent (see earlier definition) around their ID ( the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that is completely unconscious and is the source of psychic energy derived from instinctual needs and drives; or, more likely, an abbreviation for identity), wanna-bee masters swimmers (I suspect a spelling error unless you mean masters swimmers aspiring to become hymenopterans, but I am willing to bet my house this is not what you mean) attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". Try as I might, I find myself hopelessly dumbfounded here in the final passage. Are you saying that masters swimmers, out of reverence for the past accomplishments of yesteryear's youthful greats, should not try to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians? That if, by some chance, I were to stand up on the blocks next to John Kinsella, I should wave the starter over and ask, "Sir! Is it true that I must scratch now? A certain Mr. White Buffalo has advised me that I should not even swim in the same waters as a former NCAA champion and Olympian!" Would it not be easier to put every former NCAA champion and Olympian in a special wax museum where their glory would never age, their midlife adoption of steer tattoos never seem vaguely ridiculous, their audience of well-wishers and sycophants and shrine builders could pay admission fees to view, and their very flesh might, at the sounding of the trumpet, take on incorruptibility? And finally, what exactly is the "it" that I don't get but you and the others in your rarefied community of Citius, Altius, Fortius do get? Please clarify these few areas I have not been able to comprehend--that is, if you don't first lose our friendly immunity challenge and get voted off the USMS posting island for the next month. At this point, I will now resume the private, as opposed to public, justification of my existence, which is, as you have rightly suggested, a very tiresome business indeed!

Mr. Thornton: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". I believe your wanting to justify your existence through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". WB Say what? Really, I don't know what this means, Mr. White Buffalo. I shall attempt to break it down to see if I can better understand your communique: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". Okay, we shall amend our ways. We shall forsake the Royal We and adopt the I point of view. I understand this part. Now, let us--damn!--I mean, let me move on. I believe your wanting to justify your existence... My existence, eh? Okay, I shall stipulate that when periods of profound melancholia recede, I do occasionally find myself semi-hoping to continue my existence, though the effort required to do so tends to be more than enough to occupy all my efforts. To both exist and also justify my existence presumes that I have reached a loftier rung on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs than I have, in fact, ever achieved. Still, I will not pick nits here. So okay, I am, in some sense, when not clinically depressed, both hoping to exist and in some ill-defined and muddlesome way justifying this existence (though I must admit I am already losing my sense of what you mean)-- through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. I think what you are saying in the first part here (personal attacks) is that I have been overly aggressive in my therapeutic intervention with Mr. Negative, maybe through my amateur psychoanalytic vivisection, or maybe through my mention of shoulder surgery and the ill-fated Longhorn steer tattoo, or maybe through both these things? Guilty! There is a famous saying that many successful captains of industry live their whole lives by: It is not enough that I succeed, my friends must fail! But what about those of us who are without success and without friends? What is left for us to adopt as personal mottos? Damn it! I am using the first person plural again. Let me rephrase, Mr. White Buffalo (and might I quickly and in passing congratulate you on picking as your personal namesake one of Charles Bronson's hokiest of all adversaries! I feel that you may be serving a similar purpose for me here!) Okay, so what motto do I live by, a person without success, and without friends? (Perhaps I am being disingenuous here. Like Willy Loman, I concede that in some quarters I am liked. But in no quarter am I well-liked.) Taking Occam's Razor to the liberation of a personal motto, I shall simply slice the original to fit my down-sized circumstances: It is not enough that I fail, people I have never met must be attacked ruthlessly on the USMS forums! Allrighty then. Point taken. Which leads me to the second element of the above highlighted passage of yours and its phrase "self rationalization of mediocrity." I suspect we have more or less covered this in our previous parsing. "Self rationalization of mediocrity" may mean something slightly different from "justification of existence," but let's face it (and here I am not using the royal we but rather am referring to me, Thornton, and you, Buffalo): given who we both know me to be (a good-for-nothing who would be doing everyone a favor by going away), these are pretty close to redundant phrases. I do not, however, fault you on your rhetoric, Mr. Buffalo! Far be it from me to suggest a fellow writer might benefit from trimming his prose! Rather, I concede that your redundancy on this matter is intentional and is used for emphasis, not because you are already running out of things to say in the second sentence of your comment! Which brings us now to the third part (embarrassment). Forgive me, but I am not sure who you mean is embarrassed. Are you saying it is I who am embarrassed by me? I doubt this is what you mean, but if this is your intent, please let me reassure you: I have almost never been embarrassed by anything I've done, no matter how idiotic and crude it may appear to outsiders, since a wonderful day in the spring of 1975 when I was a lifeguard in Georgia taking huge quantities of a drug called Triavil and met an 8 year old blonde girl named Catherine Person and together the two of us formed the "We love to make fools out of ourselves" club. I have adhered to our charter ever since and taken great succour from the invulnerability to embarrassment this has afforded me. Thus, please do not concern yourself with my embarrassment. I am probably capable of feeling this emotion, but I haven't actually done so for 35 years, and I am not experiencing it now. If, on the other hand, you are referring to your embarrassment, the way some people feel when they see a pathetic specimen ranting and raving and want to distance themselves from the spectacle, it would seem a very odd thing indeed to point out to the very same ranting raver that he (me!) has become a laughingstock and that it is embarrassing for you (Buffalo!)to even be in the proximity of such a spectacular dunderheadl! Would not a better strategy simply be to slink off altogether, not allow yourself to be contaminated by me, in the process ridding yourself of the contagion of embarrassment through proximity? Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. But Mr. White Buffalo, sacred calf of the Cherokee Nation, who would, in point of fact, have made a much more manly tattoo than a gelded overgrown veal steak on the hoof, but I am drifting--back to the subject at hand--Mr. WB, I thought I was arguing on behalf of master's swimmers who take swimming seriously and actually enjoy competing and take deserved pride in their accomplishments! Please, feel free to check out my vlog, which features, in amongst the admitted dross of my personal failings and physical/psychological ailments, nothing less than a shrine to the Leslie "The Fortress" Livingstons, the Cream "(S)He-Man" Puffs, and the Rich Abrams of our beloved sport! As far as doing this favor that you ask of me, perhaps you might consider conducting a poll to see if, in point of fact, the bulk of the posters here, including those I have admittedly tweaked here and there over the years, agree with your banishment. In fact, perhaps we could do a kind of reality show immunity challenge here and now. I shall agree to the outcome if you will--my wife thinks I spend too much time on the computer anyhow. Jim Thornton or White Buffalo: who do you want to go away for, say, the next month? You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". I concede I have been hypocritical in many matters, and I may be hypocritical in this one too, but I am not sure what you mean. Permission to go to extreme parsing? Permission granted by me to me. You (this refers to me, Jim Thornton) are (equal) a hypocrite (1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion 2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings) in your (my) self-indulgence (: excessive or unrestrained gratification of one's own appetites, desires, or whims) around the mediocre (: of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance), the opposite of those self-indulgent (see earlier definition) around their ID ( the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that is completely unconscious and is the source of psychic energy derived from instinctual needs and drives; or, more likely, an abbreviation for identity), wanna-bee masters swimmers (I suspect a spelling error unless you mean masters swimmers aspiring to become hymenopterans, but I am willing to bet my house this is not what you mean) attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". Try as I might, I find myself hopelessly dumbfounded here in the final passage. Are you saying that masters swimmers, out of reverence for the past accomplishments of yesteryear's youthful greats, should not try to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians? That if, by some chance, I were to stand up on the blocks next to John Kinsella, I should wave the starter over and ask, "Sir! Is it true that I must scratch now? A certain Mr. White Buffalo has advised me that I should not even swim in the same waters as a former NCAA champion and Olympian!" Would it not be easier to put every former NCAA champion and Olympian in a special wax museum where their glory would never age, their midlife adoption of steer tattoos never seem vaguely ridiculous, their audience of well-wishers and sycophants and shrine builders could pay admission fees to view, and their very flesh might, at the sounding of the trumpet, take on incorruptibility? And finally, what exactly is the "it" that I don't get but you and the others in your rarefied community of Citius, Altius, Fortius do get? Please clarify these few areas I have not been able to comprehend--that is, if you don't first lose our friendly immunity challenge and get voted off the USMS posting island for the next month. At this point, I will now resume the private, as opposed to public, justification of my existence, which is, as you have rightly suggested, a very tiresome business indeed!