No B.S Friday: World Cup time. Bring it on!
I wasn’t always so out there about what I love.
With the World Cup starting up again, I remember that I’m a soccer tragic. I just love the game. And when every country throws up their best and most talented – and when every country brings their own special flavour – the flair of the South American’s, the disciplined air-attack of the Germans, or the sheep-dog tenacity of the Aussies, it’s just a beautiful thing.
And look, I know.
I know FIFA is a problematic organisation.
I know Qatar is a problematic host nation.
I know there are probably higher human pursuits to get excited about it.
And I’ve tried. I’ve gone to avant-garde theatre productions. I sat through 40 minutes of a woman talking to a shoe until they asked me and my air-horn to leave.
So what can I say? I love soccer. And I just love what I love.
And this is the tragedy. This is the self-built prison that I see so many people suffering in.
Too many of us just don’t give ourselves permission to love what we love.
We think that our desires aren’t sophisticated enough (when soccer is actually an incredibly sophisticated and strategic game when you get down to it.)
Or we think that our desires aren’t cool enough. Or they’re not helping the world enough. Or they give away our working class roots, or whatever.
Ever since high-school, when my love of soccer was called an ‘unhealthy obsession’, I’ve felt all of these things.
And so I just never gave myself permission to love what I loved.
And the real tragedy of it?
We can’t change it. We love what we love. We love who we love. We can’t change. It comes from deep in the body (that’s the joy of it!). It’s not something we have access to.
And sure, our tastes evolve and become more sophisticated. I used to drink Jack Daniels. Now there isn’t a single bottle of whiskey in my cabinet that costs less than $500 a bottle.
But fundamentally, I just love what I love, and there’s nothing that can be done about it.
And what happens if we don’t give ourselves permission to love what we love, is that we just become unhappy. We’re living in a prison.
If we’re not doing the things that make us happy, then we’re just not going to be happy.
And sure, we might succeed at presenting ourselves as sophisticated and cultured.
But who cares?
What good does that do us?
There’s no joy in impressing a bunch of posers with your nuanced understanding of French absurdism in the 1920s.
No, the great challenge of life is to learn what it is that lights you up.
And then own that. Say, yep, this is just what I love, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.
I’m staying true to myself.
So bring on the football. I can’t wait.
JG.