One day at a time

lauramasters:

“I was in love with the whole world and all that lived in its rainy arms. Sometimes I’d look out on my yard and the green leaves would be glowing. I’d see the oil slick on the wing of a grackle. I’d hear the wind rushing, rolling, like the far-off sound of waterfalls. Then I’d open my mouth wide, my ears wide, my heart, and I’d let everything inside.” - Louise Erdrich

In my soccer-nerdery I couldn’t help but repost this as it pertains to two of today’s ‘maestros’ of the beautiful game. The post’s a quick read and if you’re unfamiliar to either of the player’s genius then I suggest you youtube their exploits.

afootballreport:

By Eric Beard

“Pelé doesn’t know sh*t.”

That was Sid Lowe’s response to James Richardson’s teasing statement on The Guardian’s Football Weekly Podcast. Richardson, of course, was referencing Pelé’s opinion that Neymar is better than Lionel Messi. With Pelé getting up there in age, Sid might be on to something. But that’s neither here nor there. The fact is that Neymar couldn’t do sh*t to stop Barcelona from winning the Club World Cup.

Player comparisons are far too often full of intangibles that draw upon the weak base of power language possesses. Language is expected to casually unveil a dramatic truth when poetically expressed. However, according to Pep Guardiola, “there are no adjectives” to describe Messi. Language is sh*t next to Messi.Words are sh*t, next to a 24-year-old from Rosario. He is “extraordinary” in dozens of matches every year, and yet his brilliance is invariably unique from one match to another. But if you describe dribbling nine players and chipping the keeper with the same superlative as a hat-trick at the Bernabeu, you need not fear the wrath of Señor Guardiola.

Rather, Pep should understand the deficiencies of human linguistics. But this is not about Messi. It’s not about Neymar, either. The question we’re faced with is the power of an individual, even a phenomenon. Before we go any further, let’s recognize that “phenomenon” is a word football fans can comprehend and associate with Neymar and Messi. But let’s also recognize that it’s a word that doesn’t mean sh*t in defining Neymar or Messi. The subjectivity of definition is clouded by the illusion, the false formation of a collective consciousness. If this were the case, if we could adequately identify the essence of brilliance another through millions of opinions, then we would not be left speechless listening to Messi being described as a “wonderful salmon [rising] out of the stream.”

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I’ve been home, by that meaning my village, for less than a whole week and already I feel relieved from my airtravel by the overwhelming sense of things being slowed down, there just seems to be so much I’d overvalued in my nostalgia of home that I didn’t think I would have. (Now, yes being home in the States was indeed quite amazing, fantastic and numerous other superlatives. But it was also way too overwhelming and I was far too removed from the proclivity and voyeurism of our popular culture with media and the obsession with stardom, to be able to fully adjust quickly. Needless to say I was ill-equipped to be back home as it was not as I’d pictured it being in my head). But aside from that it’s given me the charge to take on this next year in full stride.

To start off with, I’ve spent about five of the last seven mornings sitting and enjoying a morning cup of tea. That’s right, just sitting. For a solid hour, maybe even two. Watching nothing—nothing happen, nothing develop, nothing change—and lavishing in that void, that quiet. I guess that serves to best explain the largest difference from life back home, as it is loud; busy. I never felt that there was never that quiet while on vacay and it repeatedly stressed me.

A sense of listlessness that is neither guilt-ridden or pejorative for lacking motivation towards doing something is how I’d describe my down time in Rusasa and were it not for a deeply ingrained Protestant work ethic I’d prescribe the same for anyone reading this. (Now not to imply that EVERYONE embodies this lifestyle in Rwanda. My experience is wholly unique as I’m unfairly privileged in my situation of living in a dollar-a-day kind of village, while making $250 per month. Thusly everyone else is often off farming or harvesting their day’s or week’s food while I’ve been enjoying these quiet moments). But what I notice most, after having have lived and appreciated these ‘opportunities’ to be NOT doing, is that I’ve come to observe and understand a fair amount more about people that I hadn’t before. Things about myself, about who I am: my own beliefs, impulses, hot buttons, as well as what seems to drive me; but also about human nature at large. My position as both being such an exceptional foreigner and a relatively wealthy one, has posited me both within numerous situations where my power and privilege are blindingly apparent, but also outside others where my role as an observer has allowed me to see certainly flattering or detrimental behaviors of villagers that as such has led me to note the universalities in the problems and realities people face. Whether that be in a remote village in the Southern province of Rwanda or a predominantly upper-middle class suburb of Cleveland.

The results and circumstances surprisingly are the same. Now, color me stupid if you like but I think you’d be hard-pressed to ably present evidence of the similarities in two communities so environmentally different. Now without getting TOO deep here, I’ve just come to realize that there’s sincere value in living honestly both in one’s triumphs and in one’s fuck-ups, as well as living for the moment. Because without a sense of self-accountability or one’s being self-effacing stuff like infidelity and Lehmann Brothers can occur. And if one is not able to proverbially clean the skeletons from the closet then everything one does is not completely in earnest. As well, if one cannot live for the moment then the future cannot fully be planned or ably enjoyed when it arrives because of one’s worries. So, sorry again for sounding prophetic and philosophical, it’s just that in my village I find my vacations rather unoccupying, however that doesn’t make what I’ve said any less true. Anyways, enough of the mind-fodder for now. I’ll end this observation by lastly noting that I joined the Peace Corps 14 months ago with the hope of making positive changes for people in Rwanda, I didn’t expect that case #1 would be my own.

Now for something completely different, in step with the holiday mood, I expect to engage myself fully in whatever festivities Kigali, Rwanda provides and also by what a Rwandan Christmas really looks like (however I of course will be amongst other Americans whether current or retired volunteers, so perhaps my observations won’t be ‘just’). So, tomorrow I’ll be heading back into development to pass Christmas not ‘solitarily’ in my village but with whichever other volunteers didn’t make the trek home but rather to Kigali. ALSO, there are just two weeks between us and the ‘official’ start to school (which really means another three to four weeks of vacation), and my last year in Rwanda [cue the sad face emoticon]. There will be more to come on that after the break, lol…