Have you ever experienced a moment when destiny seemed to be shining up on you? You might have been having an ordinary night out with friends where everything just seemed to click. The food was great. The company was incredible. You had this feeling in the pit of your stomach that this must be "it-. Maybe you even questioned if it was too good to be true. Then the next weekend, the same group of friends gets together, goes to the same places, does the same activities, but somehow the night falls flat. No matter how hard you try to regain the original excitement you just aren't able to accomplish it. I think everyone can relate. Each of us has had moments in our lives where at a particular moment in time, we felt it couldn't get any better, or the moment could not become any more real. For Clifford Geertz, in his essay entitled, "Deep Play; Notes on a Balinese Cockfight-, there are some defining moments during his time studying Bali that I think he would say he felt he had experienced an authentic moment. I would go so far as to say that Walker Percy, in his essay "The Loss of the Creature-, would agree. But this isn't how Geertz's experience begins. .
Geertz begins his essay by describing the almost woeful emotions of being the outsider in Bali. The Balinese (if we are to believe Geertz) are a people that treat outsiders or foreigners as if they don't really exist. In fact, Geertz begins the first paragraph of his essay by stating that he and his wife were seen as "intruders-. He continues, telling us that they were "nonpersons, specters, invisible-. I got the mental image of trying to have a conversation with someone and all the while the individual looks right past you. It is from Geertz's own admission that I would contend that what Percy would call having an authentic "it- experience, is something that Geertz lacks, at least at the beginning. He and his wife definitely felt "out-.
