From Rhys Jaggar:
The nature of sacrifice..
Your link to the Irish Times article raised the issue of sacrifice.
Sacrifice is a concept I know a lot about.
Here are few lessons:
1) Those tending toward egotism who sacrifice too much too early usually take it out on innocent bystanders not to become broken.
2) Those naturally inclined toward sacrifice can be broken by being forced to sacrifice too much, too soon. The tragedy is they do it willingly, trusting their mentor….
3) Sacrifice is best done by those who have pushed boundaries and learned their own limits. They have realised the limits of individual endeavour and are open to greater achievement through teamwork and self sacrifice.
4) Those who were nurtured well young are most inclined toward healthy testing of boundaries and later sacrifice. Those who sacrificed their own young needs to parental neglect or forcing need something altogether different before they can sacrifice again and feel fulfilled doing so.
5) Sacrifice without success is far harder to take than never having sacrificed at all. There are no hiding places, only asking whether yet more sacrifice might bring success or whether the game is over for you. Vast numbers who have never made those sacrifices sneer and belittle those who know their race is run. They do not understand the Irish expression ‘Too much sacrifice makes a stone of the heart.’
6) Those who marry too young, become parents too young are often less able to sacrifice healthily. It is why societies had a spate of 30-something divorces when those who married young realised they had grown apart, had had little in common, had married to conform etc. Marriage is for those ready to settle down after playing the field, parenting is for those having tasted partnership sufficiently to wish to create something lasting. Manufacturing children is a sure way to create children who sacrifice for their parents….not to mention unhealthy sibling dynamics….
So if the road to success at Arsenal is through sacrifice, careful analysis of how quickly to ramp up sacrifice without breaking players is necessary.
Unless Acceptable Collateral Damage is a core Arsenal value?
Myles says:
Thanks very much, Rhys.
Nobody but you would send us this !
In my class today a young mum places her mat just in front of mine but to my right, like last Tuesday morning.
“Don’t kick me again,” I said, teasing. She hadn’t and wouldn’t.
“I’ll get you,” she replied.
Then I went over to my Arsenal-supporting mate, a surveyor, who had just done the 8.35 class.
“I printed out a great Ken Early piece for you, folded it, put it on my tracksuit trousers.”
“You forgot it.”
“I like him,” said a tall guy standing by the audio cabinet.
“You read Ken Early?”
“Yes,” he said.
And then it was time for us to start and the Blonde Angel’s preamble includes the question, “Any first timers to pilates?”
A slim new girl in the corner puts up her arm. She giggles and quietly says, “Don’t laugh at me.”
Afterwards I stroll home from the bus top with Clean Up Woman, kicking my Pumas though piles of cherry blossom.