"A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever!" My man John Keats said that!

SPORTING GOODS

While I am loath to bring attention to anything the horrible David Brooks is paid to write for the New York Times, his piece from last Sunday proves the adage that "A Stopped Clock is Right Twice a Day." (In Brooks' case, I would argue the clock is right more often than him.) That being said, I must give credit to him for the following work, which I will "quote" in its entirety:

No one can describe the agony I feel. No one can describe the forebodings of doom that mount pitch by pitch, inning by inning, as the New York Mets make their way through the National League playoffs.

Early triumphs build mountains of false hopes, but this merely forestalls and cannot avert their eventual extinction. Delgado may slug and Glavine may discover the genius of lost youth, but, as the poet says, doom is the omen in my heart convulsed. For the gods decree, and history confirms, that those without starting pitching do not win championships.

And sooner or later I will sit with the remote trembling in my hands, with hollow cheeks and lifeless eyes, as some other fan’s team celebrates its glory, and there will be children weeping uncontrollably on the floor of the ruined family room around me, and women’s knees will give way, and they will be kneeling and keening amidst the scattered piles of tear-stained popcorn, and men will tear their cheeks and beat themselves with clenched fists under the full impact of the devastation.

The Mets will lose, and I will make the lifeless trudge to the unforgiving fridge in search of liquid anesthesia.

The team has tempted fate this year with a most un-Metslike display of offensive greatness. They have been led by joyful Reyes, strong-limbed Wright, sharp-jawed Valentín and Beltrán the Unperturbed. They have fed our pride with a great torrent of hitters. Except in the Bronx, they have no equals. But as Aristotle says, the more one is possessed of excellence, the more one will be pained at the thought of elimination.

And the failures of the starting rotation have been a long time coming. The mind reels back to the pointless trading of the young phenom Scott Kazmir (Woe!); the passing of the chance to get Barry Zito (Woe!); the injuries to Pedro’s calf and shoulder (Double Woe!); and the final tear to El Duque’s aging muscle (Tremble all before the dying of the light!). And now, as it is said, having done what men can, they will suffer what they must.

If this were a Christian universe, they would be saved by grace. If this were a Jewish universe, they would be comforted by more food. But baseball exists in a Homeric universe, where none can escape the iron shaft of fate. Soon the foaming crowds at Shea will grow silent as the tomb. The dugouts will gape manless and the world’s attention will shift to the Mannings and Madden, to Roethlisberger and Parcells, as winter comes too soon.

What is a fan to do? This season, I have followed the Mets cross-continent, from New York to San Diego. At various ballparks, I have laid pounds of sacrificial chicken tenders across the altar of my expanding waistline. And yet the fan is left powerless, the players’ plaything, like Andromache who can do nothing but watch while her husband Hector battles and seals her fate.

Epictetus says that some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our desires and responses. But our bodies are not up to us. Neither are our possessions, or our reputations or, by extension, our teams. Serenity, he says, consists in embracing the things within our control and discarding the things that are not.

And so perhaps what matters now is one’s comportment in the face of what is to come, the willingness to embrace the full truth of the unchangeable destiny.

We stand at the Hot Gates of Thermopylae, waiting for Pujols or Swisher. We suffer and yet stand firm. We know opposing balls will fly off walls. We know double-play-turning shortstops will leap like rams. But we will greet these blows with an acceptance that is not resignation. We’ll greet them with a clear soul and with a composure that affirms the dignity of life and unites suffering and knowledge. A great soul in agony transcends misery and achieves immortality, especially in the upper decks.

Aeschylus writes: “God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”

This is how a true Mets fan greets impending loss. And come to think of it, this is not bad preparation for what’s about to befall Republicans, either.

I especially like the last line. Now that the Yankees have been eliminated, I have a feeling that the liquid Mr. Brooks is drinking in not being used for anesthethic purposes.

BONUS: Ten points to the first person other than Chill who knows where the title for this piece comes from.