rope-a-dope

I like boxing.

Each man I meet who professes to share my interest in boxing checks out my stance then corrects it, so that in fact they are not correcting me, so much as correcting the last man who corrected me. Then they invite me to spar. I hold back but they laugh and ask for my best shot but when I land a punch that draws blood they hold their noses chins lips and wave me away when I rush up with tissues, upset. I am not in control. I am not a good boxer.

P likes boxing. He likes watching it, reading about it. He doesn't like doing it. The other day P told me how he'd used Ali's tactics against Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle as an allegory for his periodic bouts of depression when explaining it to someone who didn't understand. It's like this, P had said. Ali knew he was a dancer while Foreman was a slugger. Foreman expected Ali to dance around him. Ali told Foreman he'd dance around him. But he didn't. What he did instead was just lie on the ropes and keep taking Foreman's punches, taking them round after round until Foreman had exhausted himself. Then Ali hit back. He finished Foreman off. He did not dance. That's what it's like, P said, when you're depressed. Dodging won't help. You've got to just lie on the ropes and take it and take it and take it. Then you hit back. Then you finish it off. But first, you've got to take it. You don't dance.