When Novak Djokovic puts our opinions to the test

"Hitch" is being much-discussed, much-celebrated at the moment on the 10th anniversary of his far-too-early death at 62. At the time of that death some smug Christians claimed that Hitch's otherwise inexplicably early death proved that there is a God and that He, God, irritated by so prominent a non-believer, had intervened to shut the pest (Hitchens) up.

Back to "Hitch" (how I loved him and how I love his books!) in just a moment.

But first I testify that it is one of my new year resolutions to cultivate the quiet dignity of not having strong opinions on everything. That resolution has just, immediately, been put to the sternest possible test by the Novak Djokovic imbroglio.

So far, though, I am keeping this promise made to myself and find myself, on Djokovic, in a state of serene unopinionated neutrality even though as an ABC reporter has just (Tuesday afternoon) commented "everyone has an opinion" on the issue.

The reasons for all this opinionism are obvious. It is not only that the pandemic has our lockdown-bruised nation in a jittery and boilingly angry mood but also that Djokovic, irrespective of how one feels about him as a tennis athlete (and this columnist is a lifelong tennis tragic and so admires his tennis-playing more than words can wield the matter) is a polarisingly irritating and seethe-provoking narcissus.

A satirist with The Shovel has just captured the Djokovic obnoxiousness very nicely with a piece Victorians granted last-minute medical exemption from Novak Djokovic.

"Victorians will not be required to undergo the usual two-week period of being confined to the same city as Novak Djokovic," the satirist reports, "and will instead be able to spend their January without being exposed to the tennis player."

"A spokesperson for the Victorian government said the decision had been made by a panel of independent mental health experts. 'Generally we ask that Victorians spend two weeks every January hoping that Novak Djokovic will be knocked out in the early rounds, only to watch him go on and win. It's exasperating, it's quite traumatic and after 10 years, it's time to try something different. Victorians have suffered enough,' she said.

"Medical experts agreed with the decision, saying constant exposure to Novak Djokovic can be incredibly irritating. 'Watching him on court can be f****ng excruciating,' health expert Sarah Gallatine said. 'There's an emotional toll ... and then there's that nauseating carry-on after he wins - we need to limit exposure to that'."

Thrice-vaccinated myself I suppose I could seethe about irritating Novak's perverse unvaccinatedness. And yet I have always had a soft spot for the temperamental genius, suspecting his or her weird and obnoxious sides are part of his or her sheer exceptionalism.

Almost all of my favourite composers, poets and public figures were/are weirdo beasts and Novak wouldn't be the wondrous tennis player he is if he wasn't also, off-court, the irritating "tool" that Nick Kyrgios (another temperamental genius) once dismissed him as being.

Temperamental geniuses bring colour and richness and glimpses of excellence into our national life and perhaps the visas issued to foreign temperamental geniuses should take that into account, giving them welcoming concessions not given to dull, colourless people.

But back to Christopher Hitchens and to how, at a time when there are such temptations to rave (on one side or the other) about Djokovic there is so much timely wisdom in Hitch's deft observation in his Letters To A Young Contrarian that "The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." Hitch is right and in the Djokovic case I find my agile and grown-up mind thinking that the cases for and against Djokovic (for letting him play or for sending him away) are both so very good and so unfathomably complex that instead of my didactically carrying on like a pork chop on behalf of one of them I will declare the tug-of-war between them an honourable draw.

It is the essence of my new year resolution to be less opinionated, in recognition of the truism that savagely very opinionated people are wild-eyed, noisy and vulgar and, unattractively, foam at the mouth. This year, 2022, is to be my dignified year of living philosophically and attractively.