Tag: life

  • Chapter 3: Start

    Angry buzz. Brain throbbing. Nausea. Eyes opening. Burning daylight! Eyes snap shut. A groan. Two groans. Soft… A breast. Not alone. Heart about to burst out of chest. Who’s that drilling in the distance? What’s that smell. Cigarettes. Alcohol. Morning breath. Who’s morning breath? Just a peek. Adjust. Who is she? And… a fingernail on the other side. Not a nail, a talon! Who is she! Come on fatty. Up. Get up. Get up fatty. Fatty. FATTY!

    Ronaldo sat bolt upright in a bed that wasn’t his. Somebody had forgotten to shut the damn curtains. And the window! The smell of cooking oil in a vat on a stove from across the street. Kids shouting as bare feet met leather. Rainbow flicks and elasticos. Some folksy samba on crackling speakers… radio? Where the fuck am I?

    The one on the left reached across, her hand running over Ronaldo’s ample belly. “Morning, gordo.”

    Gordo. Fatty.

    “Don’t call me that.”

    “Why so sensitive? You were not like this last night at the bar.”

    Bar? What bar?

    “Aii, keep it down,” the one on the right yawned and stretched, kicking off the single sheet that had apparently covered all three of them. “It’s too early to talk.”

    “You keep it down, idiota. Who forgets to draw the curtains at night?”

    “I think you both should shut up,” Ronaldo climbed out of bed with some difficulty.

    “Aiii, you used to move a lot better on the pitch, eh?”

    Ronaldo yawned as he pulled on his clothes that were in a heap on the floor. “How much do I owe you?”

    “Owe… what do you think we are, whores?”

    “I mean-“

    “Just get the fuck out, balofo!” she reached over and threw a slipper at his head.

    Out on the street, it was chaos. Hawkers pushing carts with their provisions. Women hanging washing up on makeshift clotheslines. A passed-out drunk sleeping on newspaper. Those kids playing.

    The ball bounced right in front of Ronaldo. Instinct kicked in and he controlled it. Perfect first touch.

    The kids chasing after the ball stopped in their tracks and gasped, staring open-mouthed and wide-eyed at their greatest idol.

    “Bom Dia, friends,” Ronaldo said cheerfully, one foot resting on the ball.

    “F-f-“

    “Uhh-“

    “Fenomeno!” He forgot that he was admired among these younglings.

    “How did you ever recognise me?” Ronaldo said, laughing spiritedly. “Oh, here.” He flicked the ball up, did a few kickups, took aim and put his lace right through the ball, sending it up into the stratosphere.

    Ohhh take that one! Maaagnificent from Ronaldo!

    He timed it as it came back down and, once again, with his deft touch, killed it dead in one, bringing fresh cheers and jubilation from his fans.

    “Thank you, thank you. Here,” he flicked it back to one of the kids, who caught it.

    “Obrigado, Don Ronaldo! How I wish you were still playing for the Seleccion, we would have SMASHED those Germans!”

    Time. Frozen. Silhouette. Show yourself! Tall. Blonde. Hands like dustbin lids. Takes up the whole fucking goal. I know who you are. I finished you off in ’02. You’re not fooling me.

    Ronaldoooo! It’s two-nil! And Ronaldo is rampant now! Resplendent Ronaldo. Two for him. Two for Brazil.

    Yes. Yes. If I was there on Tuesday instead of Fred or Hulk or whoever the fuck. We both know what would have happened:

    Tony Kroos. Oh wait, stolen on the halfway line by Ronaldo. Ronaldo bearing down on goal. One V One against Manuel Neuer. Ronaldoooooo!

    Resplendent Ronaldo. Resplendent…

    Resplendent: shining brighter than the brightest fucking star. Dazzling. Magnificent.

    Resplendent: Ronaldo.

    The kids ran back down the street, a trail of dust rising behind them. And when it cleared, so too did the path ahead.

    Surely Ronaldo. It’s 5 – 3. He just can’t stop scoring

    Clinically, I wouldn’t say zero percent. But less than one percent.

    Ausgerechnet Ronaldo. Vor vier Jahren noch der tragische Held von Paris, heute der Triumphator von Yokohama!

    Helped you through all your injuries.

    That is World Class! Absolute genius from the young Brazilian

    You used to move a lot better on the pitch, eh?

    And here’s Ronaldo… he’s going all the way… ohhhh goodness me! It’s a goal to win any football match.

    Neymar… no. Not him. Not yet.

    A hattrick for Ronaldo… What can you do to stop him?

    Silhouette. Clearing. So it’s not you, then, Kahn. You’re the other one. The new one. The man they call Neuer.

    Neuer: Newer in German.

    You stopped Brazil from scoring, but who were you even up against? Fred? Oscar? Hulk? You’re lucky you didn’t face me, punk. Well, don’t count yourself lucky yet. I’m coming for you buceta. I’m coming for you.

    Buceta: C***

    Suddenly he was alone on the road. The kids had gone. The drunk had gone. Everybody had gone.

    I played the lottery every week hoping to hit the jackpot, but I never knew the real winning ticket was the little boy breaking my vases in the living room with a ball.

    Mama…

    1994. August. PSV.

    Lançamento para Ronaldo atenção pode ser agora Ronaldo chut Goooooool!

    Breathe. Stillness. Wind. Turn down the wind. Total silence. Oblivion.

    Less than one percent chance…

    “Screw you, doctor.”

    First step.

    There was a point in his run here, when he breezed through two defenders, who’d made a wall to deny him

    Wall. Shameless fatty.

    No. Shake it off.

    Second step.

    Round the goalkeeper and scores… they just can’t keep him out.

    Third step.

    It’s not only his speed, it’s his body strength too that took him clear of the Valencia defence and once again an emphatic finish.

    Time. Unused quads. Unused calves. Unused hams. Dormant. Awake. Awake!

    I don’t remember properly but I went to sleep and then, like the doctor said, it seems I had a seizure for 30 or 40 seconds. I woke up and then my whole body was in pain.

    Less than one percent chance.

    Come on! Come on dammit! Awake! Awake!

    the speed of a sprinter, the strength of a bull, and the feet of a dancer.

    “Eh. Balofo.” What? Who, now? Another gaddamn imposter coming to make fun of me, is it? Wait…

    “Don Zico-” Ronaldo fell to his knees in front of his idol.

    “Get up, Balofo. Your time isn’t up yet.”

    Balofo: fatty.

    “But the doctor…”

    “What do doctors know? They’ve never been on the field of battle. Never felt the pain of losing. Never stepped up to take a penalty in a final. So again I ask, what the fuck do they know?” (Don Zico meant no disrespect to doctors on the front line day in day out. He’s merely trying to inspire his greatest Protege).

    “Don Zico, my legs, they won’t work.”

    “Goddamn you. Is this how you want to be remembered? As a fat has-been who’s name got stolen by some Portuguese Panaca? You ever tried looking up the name “Ronaldo” on the internet?”

    “Not in a while, no.”

    “Well I have. And it’s all him. That dull number 7 they worship. What about the one man who terrified defenders? The one even the likes of Cannavaro were scared shitless of?”

    Ronaldo shut his eyes tight. Shut out the pain. “Don Zico…”

    “What! What, dammit! Is that how you want to be remembered? You were supposed to be my heir. How can you call yourself my heir when you haven’t yet finished the job?”

    “I’ve had my time. Now it’s up to Ney and the others.”

    “Ney and the others. Look at you! Didn’t you see what happened on Tuesday?” both gazed into space for a second, then Zico shook his head and continued, “no, let’s face it. I’d rather have half of you than ten of all of them put together!”

    “But-“

    “No excuses!”

    Hypothyroidism: a common… excuse for giving up on dreams

    To me he’s the best Brazilian striker that I saw on the field. Because not only did he score, but also his preparation. He did important things as a striker.

    He was a player with a lot of technique, he was fast, he had a gift to dribble with ease

    – Zico on Ronaldo Nazario

    “Now you see it, don’t you Balofo. Go out now and shut them up. Shut me up. You are the greatest that I ever saw on the field…”

    Ronaldo blinked and Don Zico was gone. Apparitions. And he’s still living.

    Fourth step.

    Come on. Start. Just start.

    Crouch. Ready for the spring.

    There’s the run. Burst past Hamann.

    Steady. Breathe.

    Wörns couldn’t stay with him.

    Steady.

    And there’s no stopping Ronaldo in a flow like that

    NOW!

    Fifth step.

    And go…

    <Odds

  • Phones – a global epidemic?

    I’ve been thinking about how to write this post for a long time now. But what the heck, maybe I’ll just write and see where it goes.

    My biggest problem, I think, is that I second guess myself too much. Will this be “academic” enough? Will it sound “intelligent” enough?

    But this is a blog dammit, so who cares, these are my thoughts and I just want to put them down somewhere. So here goes.

    I was at the hospital the other day and decided to run a wee experiment. I wanted to see a) how many people were on their phone at any given point and b) how long people could go for without getting their phone out.

    There were 36 people in the waiting room for the hour and a half that I was there. 3 left and 3 came in, so the number remained 36 throughout. And these are my findings:

    • At one point or another, all 36 people made use of a cell phone
    • The longest a person lasted without using their cell phone was 20 minutes

    I don’t think you can draw any serious conclusions from this. But it did get me thinking: have we become obsessed with our screens as a society?

    My personal struggle with screen time

    I can’t speak for the whole world. But I can speak from my own experience. I got my first cell phone when I was 13. My parents gifted me a Nokia 3310. It had a black and white screen, you could compose ringtones and play Snake.

    Even without Instagram and other apps, I’d spend a lot of time on the phone, as did most of my peer group. I blame Snake for that.

    Fast forward to today. We’re spoiled for choice. Apps, a new iPhone release every week (kidding, not kidding), 10000 mega pixel cameras (front and back) and easier access to phone data thanks to “bundles” and “deals” from sim providers.

    Literally, anything can be done on a phone. Who needs the real world right? Want to connect with people, there’s WhatsApp. Want to compare lives? There’s Instagram. Want to get “influenced” by the latest trends, there’s YouTube (and YouTube Shorts). There’s Threads. Snapchat. Tik Tok. Viber. The list goes on and on and on. Again, who needs the real world?

    I know I’m guilty of always having my phone on my person. If I sit still for a few minutes, I start to feel the itch. And when I feel the itch, I get my phone out. And here’s my usual app route:

    • WhatsApp: who’s messaged, have I replied to everyone that’s sent me a message? Ooo, updates, who’s got things to share. Time: 3 to 5 minutes
    • Instagram: let’s see what people are up to. Generic story 1. Generic story 2. Oh look, so and so went to Bali. Didn’t someone else post the same exact picture? Time: 8 to 10 minutes
    • BBC Football: has anything changed in the last 1 hour since I last checked? Time: 4 to 6 minutes
    • YouTube: shorts. Recently, Lionel Messi highlights, Beatles throwback, ancient Vedic traditions explained in an AI-generated voice, AI-generated “What-ifs” featuring Draco Malfoy. Time: 10 to 15 minutes.
    • Repeat after 1 hour.

    The issue

    I ran a quick DuckDuckGo search and found a few stats on attention span. Here’s one that coincides almost perfectly with my aforementioned experiment:

    The average attention span of adults over 60 is 18 minutes, compared to 22 minutes for adults 18-30, per a 2022 study in Neurobiology of Aging

    Remember I mentioned that the longest a person lasted without using a phone was 20 minutes? Hmm, looks like this is coming off pretty “academic” already!

    Here’s another stat that didn’t really surprise me:

    The average work-related attention span is 2 hours, a 50% decrease from 4 hours in 2000, as reported in a 2023 study by Microsoft

    But is phone use and social media to blame for this? I did take an econometrics module, but I’m not going to run a regression analysis on STATA here (still have PTSD from that). I will however, pull up this stat:

    The average American spends 7 hours daily on digital media (excluding social media), reducing their attention span for non-digital tasks by 22%, per a 2023 study by Nielsen

    Side note: if you are an academic and feel like I’m not doing this right, just let me know. It’s been a while since I did my Masters.

    From what I’ve gathered, though, is that phone use – and consequentially social media – has contributed, in one way or another, to reduced attention spans. Conclusive or otherwise.

    Personal observation

    We can pull up stats all day and I’m sure somebody has run a regression analysis to establish causality between phone use and reduced attention span. But I don’t want to get too academic here (ironic).

    So I’ll just draw on the power of observation to embolden my statement.

    Before smart phones and apps, I used to be able to sit through five days of test cricket with my father. The year was 2000, before cell phones became mainstream. That means nobody at home had one.

    The match was between South Africa and India. All the greats were playing from Tendulkar to Kallis. If you don’t know who they are, use your phone to look them up (joke).

    It started at 11AM. Mum brought popcorn over to us. My kid brother had his building blocks out on the floor. Dad and I sat in full concentration, only stopping at drinks breaks, lunch, tea and – finally – when the day ended. 7 hours a day for 5 days, no distractions.

    Today I can’t sit through a coffee with Dad without him checking his phone every 20 minutes or so. Not because there’s anything urgent happening. Not because he has to. So I asked him why and in his words: “what are you talking about, I’m not checking my phone.” Sigh.

    The antidote

    I don’t know what your experience with using a phone is like. But when I spend a lot of time on mine, I end up feeling mentally – and physically – drained.

    When I use my phone before bed, I sleep poorly. When I use it first thing in the morning, I find that I can’t concentrate during the day.

    You don’t need a stat for this. You just need a little bit of self awareness to gauge how you feel before, during and after cell phone use.

    Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve made the conscious decision to reduce screen time. Here are a few practical things that have helped with this (yes you’ve probably seen a thousand of these on YouTube and Instagram):

    • No phone use for the first hour of the day
    • Phone use restricted to “office” hours: 30 minutes mid-morning, 30 minutes in the evening
    • Deleted distracting apps (YouTube, Instagram)
    • Phone charges in another room, so it’s out of sight and out of mind
    • Phone has been set up to allow only certain people to call and message if they really need to get through

    To help things along, I’ve also started tracking the following data:

    • Number of non-intentional phone pick ups: how many times do I check my phone without an intention?
    • Screen time

    What about “raw-doggin”?

    That’s not a sexual reference. That basically means doing absolutely fuck all for a specific period of time. Like when you’re on a long flight and you don’t watch or read anything. You just sit for the duration of the flight, with your thoughts and nothing else.

    I’m also trying to make “raw-doggin” a part of my day to day. I’ve started with a 5 minute exercise every morning, where I just sit still and stare at a blank wall.

    “5 minutes? So little?”

    If you’ve read Atomic Habits like the rest of the world, you’ll understand the power of compounding tiny habits over a prolonged period of time.

    My plan is to increase this by a minute every week until it pretty much becomes my entire existence. By then we’ll have iPhone 100 and I won’t be buying it.

    Final thoughts

    I’m not trying to say that cell phones are bad or good. Used in moderation and with the right intention, I don’t really see the harm.

    But when we actually start looking up from the screen, we begin to notice the world in greater detail. Colours appear more vivid. People appear more interesting. We see movement. We see life.

    And, to me at least, things are definitely more interesting off screen. So maybe it’s time to start living more intentionally. How’s that for being academic?

    <Satantango

    Odyssey>