Extra Performance

[Kyleakin Lofts]

Extra performance

by

John Clements

 

One of the reoccurring human experiences is the experience of transcendence or an elated higher feeling. Transcendent feelings go beyond measurement or quantification but despite being outside normal classification still work to produce supreme or extra performance that is real and noticeable. As I have already said - this condition cannot be measured, cannot be purchased or cannot be taught by conventional means but is nevertheless very real and happens.

 

Transcendence happens in all sorts of activity, be it in sport - the unbelievable goal or pass that turns a game of soccer - the unbelievable or magical round of golf - the unbelievable athletic event where everything seems to go exactly right. There are many other examples too numerous to mention in this short article.

 

Transcendence also occurs in the arts - in musical compositions or performance - in painting in poetry or in literature. Some works of art stand out and communicate far in excess of what they are originally meant to say. This kind of heightened awareness also happens in pigeons and in pigeon racing. Occasionally we get a pigeon that seems to be in such great condition, both mental and physical he or she seems to be invulnerable. We are well aware before this pigeon is basked it is going to perform above itself or to put it more colloquially “out of its skin†...

 

In the case of the pigeon the conditions or management that induce such a transcendent condition are not absolutely certain nor can they be absolutely defined but management practices can help in the sense that they can be designed not to stand in the way of nature or in the way of a natural progression.

 

There are many natural things that go to make up the environment or life of the pigeon but when the whole is put together naturally that is often the time the whole emerges to be bigger than its parts.

 

Transcendence can never be forced and can never been brought about with any kind of certainty by artificial means. Transcendence is a miracle event we might see once or twice if we are lucky. In certain special pigeons it is often repeated but usually it only happens once in a season and once in the lifetime of the pigeon. . .

 

It is certainly a condition worth chasing and well worth trying to understand but it still remains elusive. Those aware of the transcendent or those willing to admit there are things not knowable or not intended for us to know show a kind of sanity denied to those of a more measured quantified price driven type of disposition. It is they who limit themselves but more often than not they are unaware they are doing it.

[THE FIFER]

good and interesting