But in Old Rimrock, New Jersey, in 1995, when the Ivan Ilyches come trooping back to lunch at the clubhouse after their morning round of golf and start to crow, “It doesn’t get any better than this,” they may be a lot closer to the truth than Leo Tolstoy ever was.

 

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that — well, lucky you.

 

He had learned the worst lesson life can teach — that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again. It is artificial and, even then, bought at the price of an obstinate estrangement from oneself and one’s history.

 

This is how successful people live. They’re good citizens. They feel lucky. They feel grateful. God is smiling down on them. There are problems, they adjust. And then everything changes and it becomes impossible. Nothing is smiling down on anybody. And who can adjust then?

 

Here is someone not set up for life’s working out poorly, let alone for the impossible. But who is set up for the impossible that is going to happen? Who is set up for tragedy and the incomprehensibility of suffering? Nobody. The tragedy of the man not set up for tragedy — that is every man’s tragedy.

 

The students in her class at Montessori school were asked ten questions about their “philosophy,” one a week. The first week the teacher asked, “Why are we here?” Instead of writing as the other kids did — here to do good, here to make the world a better place, etc. — Merry answered with her own question: “Why are apes here?” But the teacher found this an inadequate response and told her to go home and think about the question more seriously — “Expand on this,” the teacher said. So Merry went home and did as she was told and the next day handed in an additional sentence: “Why are kangaroos here?” It was at this point that Merry was first informed by a teacher that she had a “stubborn streak.”

 

The final question assigned to the class was “What is life?” Merry’s answer was something her father and mother chuckled over together that night. According to Merry, while the other students labored busily away with their phony deep thoughts, she — after an hour of thinking at her desk — wrote a single, unplatitudinous declarative sentence: “Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.” “You know,” said the Swede, “it’s smarter then it sounds. She’s a kid — how has she figured out that life is short? She is somethin’, our precocious daughter. This girl is going to Harvard.” But once again the teacher didn’t agree, and she wrote beside Merry’s answer, “Is that all?” Yes, the Swede thought now, that is all. Thank God, that is all; even that is unendurable.

 

“You talk about what I’m dealing with as though anybody could deal with it. But nobody could deal with it. Nobody! Nobody has the weapons for this. You think I’m inept? You think I’m inadequate? If I’m inadequate, where are you going to get people who are adequate . . . if I’m . . . do you understand what I’m saying? What am I supposed to be? What are other people if I am inadequate?”

Draw your own conclusions.

PHUKET, Thailand — William Robins vowed Monday to change his life forever after the professional golfer from California and his new bride, Amanda, narrowly escaped death in the grip of a tsunami.

The newlyweds were honeymooning on Phi Phi island — made famous by the film “The Beach” starring Leonardo DiCaprio — when a giant tsunami wave slammed into it Sunday.

They’re from California, are they? That’s where I live! There are 50 beaches within a two-hour drive of my house.

So I ask my wife, who as it happens, was born in Thailand, “What kind of a nitwit takes an 18-hour plane ride halfway around the world to lay on a beach?! Why can’t they lay on the beach here?”

And she says: “It’s a really clean beach.”

So now these people have vowed to cut a lot of the nonsense out of their lives, which I assume includes trips to freaking Asia to lay on a beach.

I don’t know . . . I guess it’s wrong, but I’m secretly delighted when bad things — like 300 MPH walls of water — happen to vapid people.

According to the story, the wife, Amanda, has a fractured pelvis.

Good! That should put a crimp in the honeymoon.

I hope she’s got a broken jaw too . . .

But what do I get from existence? If it is full I have only distress, if empty only boredom. How can you offer me so poor a reward for so much labor . . .

Another weekend approaches, bringing leisure hours that we don’t know what to do with. As the busy work week winds to a close, we have a couple of days in which to ponder the emptiness of our lives.

How dreary! How much more pleasant if we could fill up the time with other activities.

Hence: Golf!

Intoxication is another option. Or both at the same time!

According to the Associated Press:

Gerald Fiten Mason was a solid member of his South Carolina community, a golfer who lived quietly with his wife of 40 years.

I’ve always distrusted a man who plays golf . . .

The only person who remembers if you finish second is your wife and your dog — and that’s if you have a good wife and a good dog.

Believe it or not, there was once a time when great golfers actually won majors . . .

As you might imagine, we don’t have a golf course on the 4th floor — so why is this jackass holding a golf club?

Does he want to be a golfer? Could we possibly find a salesman who wants to be a salesman?

Not coincidentally, our booking of new business since his arrival has been nonexistent.

He only seems to be able to keep one piece of information in his head at any given time — and usually that piece of information is his next tee time.

We got an email from him the other day stating that anyone who brings in a qualified sales lead that is subsequently closed and billed will be paid $1,000.

Honestly, if I had a qualified lead on a development project — unfortunately, I don’t — but if I did, I’d go work it myself before I turned it over to this guy and the collection of hayseeds and slobs he calls a sales team.

Thus spoke The Programmer.