I went to see my therapist after a break of one month. I said, I am just as anxious and insecure as I used to be. He said, no you're not. Now you have new insecurities ! He was right of course. I have a whole football team of them, jostling in the tunnel, fit and ready for the new season.
Footballers tart themselves up all the time. They often do not accept the ugly truth of their short-lived careers, bad hair, and appalling fashion blunders. In fact, the dressing room is a cosmetic temple. One purpose of therapy is to learn to accept the basic facts of your makeup. Lipstick, eyeliner, blusher. I was carrying injuries from my childhood which made some aspects of my adult behaviour self-defeating and caused me to become regularly depressed. I went back four times before I summoned up the courage (became desperate enough) to start to deal with these fears and blocks. It was tough and I don't recommend it. Do it only if you can handle the major and minor revolutions in your human interactions, sudden losses and irreversable changes in social relationships, the heady battles for promotion and glory, the pursuit of silverware, unusual bruising, press exposure, scandal, and the inexorable slide into relegation.
Some cliches need a good airing to defust them. Over the moon. Sick as a parrot. The
Serenity Prayer being another.
"God give me the serenity to accept things which cannot be changed;
Give me courage to change things which must be changed;
And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other."
Serenity. Acceptance. Courage. Wisdom. Discrimination. A superb midfield lineup.
Of all of these, acceptance came last for me. I had plenty of courage from early on, bearing in mind the fact that my parents drugged me on the advice of the family doctor. I can identify with
Lou Reed whose loving parents were similarly misguided.. so I learned early not trust received wisdom and to lie to adults about who I was and what I was doing. Ref - I didn't dive.
Wisdom, now that's wonderful system, much loved by the fans, which I advise you forget all about.
TS (Thomas Stearns to his chums) Eliot said,
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is
the knowledge we have lost in information?"
From
"The Rock". In defense, Thomas Stearns was indeed such a rock.
About Wisdom Athletic. Great team, should do very well this season after a disappointing aeon.
I read the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, and the I Ching, both excellent books, the second containing it is said commentaries by Confucius, a great attacking winger with a superb turn of speed and devastating accuracy. Something about ancient Chinese morality and their timeless grasp of the essence of being always appeals. Mao with his offside tinkering attempted to wipe it out, but it persists to this day, in it's modern form, as Falun Gong, supporters of which the
contemporary Chinese authorities continue to persecute (along with Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and many other non-league religions).
I like the Tao Te Ching a lot. It can soak up pressure deep in it's own half, but it hits you every time on the break. It's also shorter than the Bible or the Koran. My favourite translation of the Tao Te Ching is by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English.
In this work of 81 stanzas, ideas about piety, loyalty, and the value of knowledge and wisdom, are often seemingly stood on their heads.
Number 19 says
"When cunning and profit are renounced,
stealing and fraud will disappear.
But ethics and kindness, and even wisdom,
are insufficient in themselves"
and
Number 20
"He who seeks wisdom is well advised
to give up academic ways"
Alan Hansen said,
"He who spends too long with the ball
Will be caught in possession"
To which I would add, he who seeks wisdom should look no further than the
Isle of Man
- a fantastic centre forward - never stopped running - and a model passport photograph.
