The Fascination of What's Easy

I own an out-of-tune guitar that's missing a string, and sometimes, late at night when my roommates have closed their doors and gone to sleep, I take it out of its case and prop it on my knee. That's when I write my 2 a.m. ballads, my mostly wordless, atonal compositions that require fewer than three chords. To call them "songs" would probably be too generous. They have no sharp beginning, and I stop whenever my fingers start to hurt or I get too sleepy. If you walk down Dewolfe Street late at night, listen carefully for an off-key strumming coming from a window high above you. Chances are it's me.

I play my out-of-tune guitar not for the glory or the girls, but because it makes me feel good. I find that strumming a few chords is like slipping into a hot bath after a hard day of work. When I play my obscene ditties about Core classes or bodily functions, I can feel the tension seeping from my muscles. There's a real satisfaction in doing something on your own time, without the expectation that anyone else will find it interesting or impressive.

Such is the case with "toilet ball," the sport my friends and I recently invented on the grassy lawn of Quincy House. During a trip to the superintendent's office, we discovered that a roll of toilet paper--when punted with a flick of the ankle--has surprising loft and travels far. Wrap the roll in masking tape to prevent the paper from unravelling, and voila--you have a genuine toilet ball, good for about 50 minutes of play before it totally falls apart. Advantages of toilet ball over conventional projectiles: It's soft to catch and can't possibly injure bystanders. It also costs nothing and recycles easily.

We spent the better part of an afternoon kicking the toilet ball around, executing breath-taking catches and dazzling spectators with our prowess. You might think that it would be embarrassing to be seen kicking a roll of toilet paper in public. You're probably right. It's a waste of time that could be spent doing productive things, like writing a paper or searching for a job. But in the gathering twilight, it's a beautiful sight--the graceful kick, the white toilet ball sailing into the air, the arching catch. I honestly don't remember the last time I had so much fun. Due to sweeping demand, we're thinking or organizing a toilet ball championship to be held every spring: the Quincy Toilet Bowl.

William Butler Yeats famously wrote that "The fascination of what's difficult/Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent/Spontaneous joy and natural content/Out of my heart." Winning a Hoopes Prize or landing a killer job is difficult, hence in part its fascination. Toilet ball, by comparison, is easy. There is no minor league of toilet ball, no farm team where you struggle for years before you make the big time. There are no screaming fans either. When you walk on to the playing field for the first time, you're the equal of every toilet ball player that's ever lived, i.e. my friends and I. So where's the challenge?

The truth is that there is none. The corporate mergers of the 21st century are certainly not going to be won on the toilet ball fields of Harvard. Neither law nor medical schools are particularly interested in students who have spent four years kicking around bathroom tissue. It looks silly on a resume and might even get you Ad Boarded.

Then why pursue this pastime? Because we like it. How often does one hear that said at Harvard? All too rarely. Most often, any explanation for why a person does X or Y is couched in terms of normatives: "Well, because I should" or "Because it's important." But we can make no such excuses here. Toilet ball is easy and nonprestigious, but we love it all the same. The only reason to play is because you find some reward in doing so. There's no test at the end of the semester. Do as much of the reading as you feel like doing.

Playing toilet ball, like strumming a five-string guitar, must be its own reward. We do it because we love the feel of grass under our feet, the smell of lilac in the air. We play because we know that with only a month left until graduation, the marginal utility of an hour spent studying is less than that of an hour spent playing outside. We kick the tender two-ply tissue because it makes us laugh. We retrieve it from the bushes because somebody has to. We love it because somebody has to. We love it because it's easy.

You can join us if you want to. And we won't take the ball with us when we have to go.

Joshua Derman '99 is a philosophy concentrator in Quincy House. This is his final column.