IJ study archive

Schtitt & Mario's walk: the Cantorian boundaries of self

quote

each well-shot ball admitting of n possible responses, n2 possible responses to those responses [...] mathematically uncontrolled but humanly contained, bounded by the talent and imagination of self and opponent [...] these boundaries of self.

Context

Tennis rendered as a Cantorian continuum — infinite branching possibility "mathematically uncontrolled but humanly contained," bounded only "by the talent and imagination of self and opponent." The move that turns the theme metaphysical: the game's infinity is real but the containing limit is the player's own skill and nerve — "these boundaries of self." The court's geometry is a diagram of the self, the baselines standing in for the limits that make a body's game possible at all.

In anthology