Who Ever Gets 100% of Anything, Indeed?

In a certain way, I almost envy the guy.

“For the past 14 years, it’s always been a mix.  I mean do you ever get 100% of anything, good or bad?”  — Alex Rodriguez

This might have been my younger son talking, looking back over his life so far, but he doesn’t much like to do this kind of reflecting, leaving it to his mother and her odd blogging habit.  He’d advise something like this:  “Run more; ponder less.”

But no, it was the fallen baseball hero, speaking to reporters after his first time back with the Yankees last week.  As many of you already know, he went 0 for 4 that night, striking out a whopping three times.  The whole thing was a bundle of contradictions – my bread and butter.  He was up from the minors, but he was suspended.  He’d been on a straight-up trajectory since high school (ever heard of someone with a batting average over .500?)  but now was, as he said, fighting for his life.  Yet again, we’re left to wonder how someone with so much going for him could be so foolish.

Not surprisingly, he was greeted mostly with resounding BOOS on that night, but he preferred to hear the contrasting CHEERS instead, gushing to reporters later on about what an overwhelming experience it was and how New York was definitely the greatest city in the world.  Just trying to look on the bright side or completely blind?

His take on it was ridiculous, of course, and there would be no coming clean about his sins on this occasion.  And yet, as someone who has a hard time brushing off any personal flaws or whiff of antagonism, A-Rod’s buoyancy kind of intrigues me, too.

What would it be like, I wonder, to perform a piano recital that was about 85% perfect and then afterwards let the few mistakes just drop to the bottom of my consciousness like so much silt?  Or to have a new wrinkle in a friendship develop and choose not to focus on it but be confident that it will smooth out in time?  To say definitely the wrong thing to someone and then, after apologizing, have confidence that the person will let it go, trusting in the basic soundness of the relationship?

To quote Hamlet, in part, this would be a way of living “devoutly to be wished.”

Then again, I guess if you really did do something to deserve booing (and you were being paid astronomical wages for keeping the faith), you first have got to be totally straight up with yourself and others before feeling any kind of ebullience or relief.

I have to admit, though, that A-Rod has a point about pretty much everything being “a mix” – it’s true that very few experiences are completely good or completely bad.  Not to be pessimistic or anything, but even when you think back on some of your best times, you’re apt to recall at least a little something that wasn’t so hot.  But why do that?  Whenever we can be swept away by a goodness that engulfs, we best just let it carry us off.  Contrarily, when a sharp tooth keeps gnawing at us from a mostly bad experience, we need to try to quiet the little animal.  We learn these things over time.

It may be hard for us to achieve 100% in most areas of life, but a quick look around any kitchen is apt to show you that things you can buy at the grocery store often make this claim of being perfectly something-or-other.  Lucky them!

In some cases, people even boast about achieving something over 100%.  Here’s a button I found on the refrigerator in the cottage we’re staying in this week:

You can only assess things in percentages so long, however, before you recognize that they just don’t tell the whole story, or even much of it at all.  My older son, becoming wise, told me that this kind of weighing of value doesn’t work for him. Numbers are fine and good in their place, but quality of life you have to sniff out.

This morning, walking down to a boat to cross over to the mainland with a few other people, I met a woman who shares my birthday today (which is also, it could be noted, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary) and also learned that the person who owns the cottage next to the one where we’re staying made the movie about my husband’s predecessor in New Hampshire.   I don’t know what the chances are of those things being combined, but I found the ride over just about 100% amazing.