Unleash the Monkey Army

Over the last several years I have spent much more time than I'd like working with people who have a hankering for the past. Like a drowning man clinging desperately to a piece of flotsam, they cling to the idea that the past was better. You know what, it might have been. But it's gone. Clinging on to it like an article of faith very rapidly changes it from a spur to restore greatness, to an albatross hanging around our necks. You can't have it back. Every actor in that screenshot has changed. In fact the stage it was played out on has changed too. If not because the stagehands have moved the scenery, then because you will now view it through today's lens made up of knowledge and insight garnered in between times. The trouble is, people tend to spend time dwelling on what they did or didn't do or else view the past through rose-tinted spectacles.And if you're in doubt as to humanity's ability to overlook the bad stuff in our past, look no further th...

People are great. They are a source of inspiration that can provide fuel for your endeavours and a boost when your motivation flags. They can provide feedback to help you learn, a shoulder to lean on when you are tired and a sense of validation of your efforts. People are crap. They leech the energy out of you. They snipe and bitch at you, belittling your efforts, desperate to suck you down into the mire of their woeful, dismal, Stygian existence. Uh oh, looks like your correspondent is full of the joys of the season. It might just be festive blues but there is also something on which I have been reflecting for a while. In sport, we recognise the effects of a good team. Even our individual sports "stars" are swift to acknowledge the work of the team of people it takes to get them there. Indeed, that has been one of the salient points of the crises that have beset cycling in recent years - the scale of the cheating and the number of people involved to make it happen. A...

Last night I saw an old woman in her heavy cotton pyjamas and her belt of authorita giving a demonstration. She proved, beyond all expectations, that her self-defence art only works if the attacker obligingly holds himself in the right position. It reminded me of my childhood and the various martial arts renaissances – most particularly karate. There seemed to be an army of black belts sprouting, like dragon’s teeth, all claiming that they were invincible. Most went on to point out that you were not attacking them in the right way when they were unable to fell you with a “deft monkey” or something like that. All of this brought me on the handful of finishers’ medals that I have for various silliness. I put those in a similar league to the non-competitive sports-days and electoral reform…I know my mind is as cluttered (and as filthy) as a teenager’s bedroom! The medals slice up two ways. Yes, they are a symbol of the achievement of finishing, and that separates those of who received ...

There is no such thing as an entirely level playing field and to pretend otherwise is naive and delusional. My issue with hankering after one is that it puts you, the individual, anywhere other than at the centre of finding a solution (how we like to externalise blame!). "If we could just catch a break we could turn this on its head"; "If the referee would just stop penalising us we could get back in this"; "if they'd just advertised that job in the one idiosyncratic publication I happen to read I could have applied". What are you doing about it? If you're sitting back waiting for a leg-up or investing your energy in complaining about the situation you are missing the point. For reasons of endocrinology or physiology or psychology - hormones or rest or genetics or fuelling or mental acuity or physical positioning - in every field of human endeavour we will find ourselves different to the people we are with and against. Even if that wasn...