“I think we all walk around feeling this tiny shred of invincibility, as if we'll live forever, as if tomorrow is guaranteed. But life isn't a given; it's a gift. We must slow down enough to enjoy today, because the (slightly morbid) reality is: tomorrow was never promised to us.”
Erin Loechner, ‘Chasing Slow’
NO generation of children have ever known so much of their parents as this crop have over the last six months.
In a time of furlough and redundancy, it’s lucky are those who have been called to the limbo land of Working From Home.
It may not seem like it when you have to cut off Cavan manager Mickey Graham because the youngest one has just wakened and is in urgent need of a nappy change (sorry Mickey), or the other comes roaring and crying mid-Zoom because my broadband theft has turned Finding Dory off, but it’s been a unique time for parents.
Stressful too, absolutely. It feels like trying to fit everything into a day has become like trying to put a four-man tent back into the tiny bag it came in.
There’s days it seems like you have the knack of it, but most of the time you feel like just letting it be until the next time you need it.
All the child knows is that, night and day, you’re there.
And so through their eyes, life must seem very simple right now.
The essence of simplicity is less.
Less obsessing about money, about having the latest car or the biggest house or the most Instagram followers.
When foreign holidays were taken off the table, an island of people found themselves rediscovering its own beauties.
From the Giant’s Causeway to the Cliffs of Moher and everywhere in between, there’s enough in Ireland to offer all the childhood experience you could ask for.
It only took a worldwide lockdown, and thereby the removal of choice, for us to realise it.
The very same principle applies to sport, and Gaelic football.
Since the early 1990s, the GAA has enjoyed an explosion in popularity and involvement and money.
It has outgrown the simplicity of less.
What began with sponsorship, and everyone seeking more off their local business than the neighbours, has grown into who has the most pitches, who has the biggest clubhouse, who has the biggest backroom team, who has the nicest gear?
And look at us now.
The clubrooms are all closed.
Rather than landing 90 minutes before a game and banging heads off a changing room wall, or studying flipcharts and going out with this robotic idea of what will happen, teams come with their gear and strip out at the side of the field.
Then they go and play.
There’s a much lighter air around the whole pre-match charade, which had completely lost the run of itself.
At inter-county level, training will never be the same again.
If the GAA moves to the split season, it could have a revolutionary effect. The county season will shorten and with the advent of remote gym work, players could find long-term some of the freedoms they’ve come to love the last few months.
Playing seems to take up less time in your week, which appeals to the married men and those with kids.
Personally, I’ve found myself back out and despite not having won a game yet, I can honestly say that I’ve never enjoyed football as much as I have the last eight weeks.
Right now, the whole GAA seems like a stripped-back version of itself.
Like it’s slowed down and remembered what it’s actually meant to be.
And has it done one bit of harm?
The pursuit of glory will always exist, as it should, but the means by which we all chase it have gone loco.
It has created a situation where married men, particularly fathers, find that they have no time to pursue their favourite pastime.
An either-or between football and family should not have to be the case.
And the last few months, for the first time in forever, it’s felt like it isn’t.
There’s something so utterly refreshing about it.
Whether it’s the illuminating effect of Covid’s impact on society, the game has rarely shimmered so brightly.
The club game has been given a home in the good weather on the dry pitches and provided entertainment that belies the idea it isn’t strong enough to keep the big house on Jones’ Road standing.
Trillick and Killyclogher produced a game on Friday night that will not be bettered in 2020, club or county. Such theatre that had commentator Marcus Ó Buachalla laughing in bewilderment at one point during the penalty shootout, but quality too.
And part of that comes from there being less.
These teams can all play ball, but often the games are micro-analysed in advance to the point that it loses so much of its potential.
Driven by the clubs with massive picks, the game has been driven beyond the reach of so many young, fit, able men in rural communities. In time, the detrimental effect of it will be the folding of many, many small clubs over the next decade and beyond.
Slowing down has given us all a chance to evaluate.
Football’s absence the last six months left a gaping hole in our lives, but it’s also taught us that it’s ok for it not to be the only thing in life.
None of us will live forever, and we’ll play football for a far shorter time.
This is a better pace at which to live life.
Tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us, so enjoy today.
Let’s not go back to the madness.
