Sport

Paddy Heaney: Finding a real buzz will let you have your cake and eat it

Darren Gallagher of Longford moves in to close down the threat posed by Derry's Conor Glass during the Allianz Football League Division 3 match at Celtic Park, Derry on Saturday October 17 2020. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Darren Gallagher of Longford moves in to close down the threat posed by Derry's Conor Glass during the Allianz Football League Division 3 match at Celtic Park, Derry on Saturday October 17 2020. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Darren Gallagher of Longford moves in to close down the threat posed by Derry's Conor Glass during the Allianz Football League Division 3 match at Celtic Park, Derry on Saturday October 17 2020. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

ALL friendships are different.

I have a friend, a WhatsApp friend, and we are in contact with each other every day.

The content and tenor of almost all our exchanges is either negative, sarcastic or just downright abusive.

I have to confess, it’s extremely enjoyable.

We argue and bicker and fight over virtually everything.

There are some constant running battles. One of them is the never ending squabble which surrounds our training and eating routines.

He basically contends that I am insane.

I counter his hysterical claim (he is emotional and prone to histrionics) by insisting that he is merely as soft as the Victoria Sponge Cake that he has a great weakness for.

The real truth of the matter is that my friend lacks an all-consuming source of motivation to maintain a proper training regime.

While he is drawn to competition, he usually tip-toes away from it.

Hence, he is left plugging away on his own with no real end goal in sight. His training pattern is very much boom and bust.

Periods of huge motivation packed with highly-detailed and ambitious plans are followed by equally long lapses where virtually nothing is done.

This cycle is as consistent as the seasons.

And when yet another attempt to lose weight is abandoned, his response is equally predictable.

After caving to temptation, I will receive a cheery photograph of him getting stuck into something big and creamy and delicious.

His very kind and generous mother-in-law spoils him.

A devoted disciple of M&S, she drops off a regular supply of Victoria Sponge Cakes and New York Cheesecakes because she knows how much he loves them.

In truth, he can’t resist.

So I’ll get a photo of him spooning into a monster slice of cheesecake.

There is usually a big sliver of cream clinging to the edge of his smiling lips and the caption will read: “You have to live too, Paddy.”

I told him once that I absolutely despise this line. So, like any decent friend would, he hits me with it at every available opportunity.

Why does it irk me so much? ‘You have to live too’. I hate it because it equates living with eating and drinking.

It has reached the stage where we have all watched so many cookery programmes that we no longer even challenge this notion.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a filled soda as much as the next man, but are we really to believe that the happiness of our lives should be measured out in the quality of the grub we have digested?

If you are lying on your deathbed and the highlights reel of your life is a series of tasty dinners, then you’ve wasted your three score and ten.

Yet, we have become so soft and so spoiled and so utterly deluded by advertising and consumer culture that we’ve come to completely accept the notion that eating rich food and drinking fine wines is part and parcel of a happy and fulfilled life.

This is a dangerous premise because it therefore holds that if you are not eating nice food and not having a regular tipple then you can’t be happy or fulfilled.

And that is what many people now believe.

The American singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt wrote a great song called: ‘To Live’s To Fly’.

The words are the epitaph on his headstone. (Townes used heroin to fly).

Whenever I receive the selfie of my friend eating his pastry, I send back a photo that was taken of me flying down one of the Sperrins on my bike.

My caption reads: “To Live is to Fly’.

There are other ways to live.

When Ben Kingsley’s character in the film Sexy Beast tries to strong arm an ex-con into one last job, he explains: “But it’s not about the money for you and me Gal, it’s about the charge, it’s the bolt, it’s the buzz.”

I prefer that philosophy.

Find something which gives you the charge, the bolt, the buzz – then you’ll truly be living.

WHEN I lived in Belfast and worked for The Irish News, I had a staple Monday morning routine.

Before writing my column, I’d buy the newspapers in Blaney’s shop then venture across the road to the Graffiti café where I’d read them while downing half a gallon of Illy coffee (you have to live too).

The Blaney brothers who owned the shop were GAA fanatics.

By the time I got to them, they would have scanned and devoured every GAA story in every paper.

The Blaneys were my litmus test for my readers. I knew if they were talking about it, then everyone was talking about it.

On Monday morning, I had individual PT sessions with two GAA obsessives.

A Derry man at 6am and a Tyrone man at 7am.

Both of them brought up Conor McKenna’s performance against Donegal in Ballybofey. It was like walking into Blaney’s again.

Forget the ancient rivalries, the Derry man was as thrilled by McKenna’s display as the Tyrone man who followed him.

Before we become attached to clubs and counties, we become attached to the game itself.

It’s brilliant that Conor McKenna and Conor Glass have returned to play the game from which they were removed.

As former professional footballers, it’s heartening to see the thrill and pleasure they derive from pulling on their county jersey.

Let’s hope gaelic football gives them the charge, the bolt and the buzz which they will have missed so badly during their exile in Australia.