The wisest are easiest to deceive: they may know extraordinary things, but they know nothing of life’s ordinary necessities.
— Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Wisdom
In his mind, he saw the ways he could use it to win a fight.
Smash his foe at the knees, then bury the axe into his chest as he fell... Hack at the neck, coming in furiously, using the long haft for additional reach... Bash the axe against an opponent’s shield time and time again to throw him off balance, then step back and strike unexpectedly from the right. He raised the axe...
...then swung it down at a log resting on the stump before him. He hit the log off-center, and the axe bounced away, as if the wood were stone. Siris growled and swung again, but this time only managed to hack a chip off the side.
“Damn,” he said, resting the axe on his shoulder. “Chopping wood is a lot harder than it looks.”
Smash his foe at the knees, then bury the axe into his chest as he fell... Hack at the neck, coming in furiously, using the long haft for additional reach... Bash the axe against an opponent’s shield time and time again to throw him off balance, then step back and strike unexpectedly from the right. He raised the axe...
...then swung it down at a log resting on the stump before him. He hit the log off-center, and the axe bounced away, as if the wood were stone. Siris growled and swung again, but this time only managed to hack a chip off the side.
“Damn,” he said, resting the axe on his shoulder. “Chopping wood is a lot harder than it looks.”
— Infinity Blade: Awakening
"It says here that he knows 38 ways to kill a guy using only his thumb, but has no idea how to start a campfire or even dress himself."
"You don't gotta be able to read in order to kill people."
— Mugen, Samurai Champloo
Damian Wayne: [The League of Assassins] taught me how to fight.
Batman: And I take it not much else.
Batman: And I take it not much else.
"I don't know. Webby's great for treasure hunting and mine cart chases, but she's not exactly built for everyday kids' stuff."
— Louie, DuckTales (2017), "Daytrip of Doom!"
"Okay, so you’re the goddamn Shadow. To this day, I honestly have no idea whether you’re one of the best swordsman ever or just a normal kid, because sometimes you show an incredible amount of skill when it comes to using a samurai sword, but other times, you say things that make it seem like you’re just a normal 12-year-old who's bewildered by puberty. You frequently use your sword to disarm me with the skill of a master samurai, but once you’ve got your blade at my throat, you start interrogating me with questions about your changing body that I don’t feel comfortable answering. My current theory is that at some point you had a fatherly sensei figure who taught you the ways of the blade, but then he abandoned you without teaching you about how puberty works. Also, you wear a garbage bag over your head to conceal your identity, and I have no idea what that’s about. That seems dangerous. "
But it's better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing. Oh, we'll invoke lush clichés about the lonely heroism of Olympic athletes, the pain and analgesia of football, the early rising and hours of practice and restricted diets, the preflight celibacy, et cetera. But the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one's mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way "up close and personal" profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life–outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what's obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It's farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child's world, is very small.
"Empty your mind of everything that doesn't have to do with fine dining. Fine dining and breathing."
— Squidward Tentacles, Spongebob Squarepants, "Squilliam Returns"
