I have been thinking about excellence this week. Human beings who strive for extraordinary things. To be out on your own, not in the pack, taking risks to achieve something new and remarkable, all the time knowing the likelihood of failure.
I am not shocked by much, but I was shocked by Ash Barty’s decision to quit tennis. She’s just 25, the number one women’s tennis player in the world, at the peak of her power. She won the Australian Open final this year, the crowd willing her on with every serve, with every backhand slice. I remember the streets of Melbourne that night, with young people hanging out of cars yelling “Barty Party!” as they do after the Grand Final.
Ash Barty, with coach Craig Tyzzer in the background, speaks to the media in Brisbane on Thursday.Credit:Eddie Jim
Her retirement was so … Barty. “Success for me is knowing I have given everything I can. I am fulfilled,” she said. “I know people may not understand it. I’m okay with that.”
There’s something about the way Barty carries herself. She is so comfortable in her skin, and for some reason that is so unusual it’s astonishing. The world is so often driven by people who are motivated by restless anxiety, by ego and external praise.
In her quiet way, Barty transcends that, and I wonder if it’s true that the truly brilliant, those who achieve extraordinary feats, need to have a strong enough sense of self to withstand the latest victory or setback. If not, they can falter or worse. Barty has much to teach us, not that she would say so.
We had some terrific pieces paying tribute to Barty and trying to capture what is so special about her. Alan Attwood wrote that Barty made no fuss about her departure. “No fanfare. Doing things her way, at her own pace, while still world No.1. To put a little side-spin on Shakespeare, nothing in her tennis life became her like the leaving it.”
Greg Baum wrote that “Ash Barty was a breath of fresh air. She wafted in, made everyone feel better for a time, and now is gone”.
To swing away from tennis, I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening night of the musical Hamilton in Melbourne on Thursday night. Hamilton, at least in my view, is human creativity at its finest. It’s smart and improbable – a rappy musical about one of the leaders of the American Revolution and the first US secretary of the treasury. Alexander Hamilton was perhaps not quite the romantic champion of liberal democracy the show portrays him, but we can let that go.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the creator of Hamilton and there must have been times when he wondered whether it would work, whether such a ludicrous idea for a musical was folly. With one work of creativity, he changed the idea of what a musical can be. Our review gave the show ★★★★½ and said it was a “must see”. I concur.
So, in a dispiriting week of politics – factional brawling in the ALP, the Victorian Liberal’s David Davis apologising for getting drunk at a function – there are people among us striving for excellence in their field, ignoring the noise around them to create something original. They are worth celebrating.
My other news is that our five trainees have started at The Age and today completed their two-week induction, a whirl of technology instruction and meeting leaders across the newsroom. I had lunch with them this week, and was struck by their honest and probing questions about what The Age is, our standards and our values. The trainees are, in alphabetical order, Lachlan Abbott, Nell Geraets, Jackson Graham, Carla Jaeger and Najma Sambul. They are smart and talented, and I reckon they will be excellent.
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