And then also, again, still, what are those boundaries, if they’re not baselines, that contain and direct its infinite expansion inward, that make tennis like chess on the run, beautiful and infinitely dense? The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise… You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again… Mario thinks hard again. He’s trying to think of how to articulate something like: But then is battling and vanquishing the self the same as destroying yourself? Is that like saying life is pro-death? … And then but so what’s the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end? . David Foster Wallace
About This Quote

It seems to me that the limits of tennis are very similar to the limits of life. The game of tennis is something that we all do everyday, whether it be playing pick up tennis or playing on the ATP tour. If you are not competing against yourself then you are not playing the game at all. The game isn’t dead until you are dead, because you can still play until you lose.

Although if you are not playing against yourself then it is impossible to win, which is quite different than losing. I think that what Nelson Mandela was trying to say is that life should be played against your own limits and not anyone else’s.

Source: Infinite Jest

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