Rationality makes it possible to better understand the world around us (Arsene Wenger)

Myles Lewis-Skelly - age 18

The January transfer window means players like Manchester City's Kyle Walker (aged 34) are looking to transfer to a new club.

It will be unlikely that a big club will look at Walker because of his age. So, he's probably looking to manage his last few years playing at a lower league, then transition to something else in or out of football.

The life of a modern footballer is pretty short. Even someone like Arsenal's Myles Lewis-Skelly, who is 18, will only expect to play until his mid 30s. After 14 years he's going to be tired!

Arsene Wenger explains the reality of this using a data metric called Top Score (points are awarded for actions such as the direction of passes): 

We realised that at the age of 32 a midfielder had a defensive score that was going down but an offensive score that was rising, that he had less energy to go into battle but more to express himself, to be more tactical. Rationality makes it possible to better understand the world around us.

Teachers and administrators can relate to this. There are different ways to express yourself. Experience can do that. 

I'm looking forward to my 43rd year as a teacher in 2025.

Moreover, I'll win (Colin Prentice)

As I gear up for a return to school in a few weeks time, I remembered this bit in Colin Prentice's book (When People Matter Most):

In the first assembly of the year I would lay out the school rules to the whole school and say: Look, here's the line, put your big toe on the line and you're fine. Put your big toe over the line and you're telling me that you're looking for a fight. I won't disappoint you. Moreover, I'll win, because the Board of Governors has agreed with these rules and the way we run it here. So it's not worth fighting.

These rules he speaks of, at Macleans College, were more guidelines to protect and maintain order, generate freedom from oppression, bullying, and offensive social behaviour.

As he said: the rights of the child to a peaceful, orderly, and productive education have to be preserved.

As I work on my guidelines for my classes I always keep this in mind.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you. a joy (Rumi)

 

In The Beach Boys (by The Beach Boys), Carl Wilson describes the higher purpose and the altruism inherent in the songs on the Pet Sounds album:

The idea of making music that could really make people feel better became like a crusade.

Just don't judge me by my shoes (The Band)

The Band's song King Harvest (has Surely Come) supplies the title for the post.

[I'm reading Robbie Robertson's autobiography, Testimony, at the moment and listening to those early albums by The Band.]

Like a lot of The Band's songs there is a depth of feeling to King Harvest. Set in the 1930s Dust Bowl context, it is a song about hope, dashed hopes and the will to keep going despite it all.

The calendar quote for yesterday was:

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it;

If you can dream it, you can become it.

William Arthur Ward

Robbie definitely imagined it, achieved it, dreamed it, became it.

It's a good way to start a new year isn't it. Plenty of hope, plenty of healthy realism, plenty of ifs to medicate on.

It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret (Jackie Joyner-Kersee)

The above is the lead off quote in a day-by-day 2025 calendar I bought before Christmas. I actually bought it as a present for someone but realised I really wanted it, so I found something else as a gift and kept it.

It's a very appropriate quote as I turn my attention towards preparing for the classes I'll be teaching in 2025.

Jackie's on the money!

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection (Winston Churchill)

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more!

The Grinch (How the Grinch stole Christmas)

Not the wind, not the flag

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: "The flag is moving." the other sad: "The wind is moving."

The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."

Ekai (in The Gateless Gate)