Old Soldiers Never Die
Peter de Noronha wrote ‘Old Soldiers never die, they only fade away, which has now been commuted to, they never die but only get slightly out of focus’. Can as much be said of Michael Schumacher’s return to F1?
At 41 (as of January 3, 2010) he is not the youthful figure he once was in the world of professional sport. But in a game that requires a high level of mental acumen, unparalleled technology and a professional team he is also not past his expiry date. Experience is all that matters in F1 now’ wrote Michael’s long time team mate Rubens Barrichello on Twitter and no one alive has more experience in F1 than Schumi. Paired with Ross Brawn (mastermind of all 7 of Schumacher’s championships) it is a world beating combination.
But that is all just technicals. What is more ‘on paper’ technicals. How many teams have been the best on paper, only to fall short of the prize come match day. Such a reality is all the more prevalent among old warriors trying to relive their glory battle days. Once the greats of their sport, they cling onto the spot light until the light fades. Would it not be better to end on top as a world-beater rather than as world beaten, with every hack scoring victories over a once great champion?
The answer to this fundamental thought has to be no. It is not better to retire for the sake of retirement. If tired of the game, the lifestyle or wishing to pursue other ventures, then retirement is the logical and best choice. But if the hunger, the fitness and talent are there, they should be on show so that the entire world may marvel. It serves as a constant reminder that past brilliance can never be tarnished by any one defeat. It is wrong to say that we can only fail to try, but it is right to acknowledge that once great the act or person or team remains great for eternity. Every breath genius takes and every step it makes is a marvel. Schumacher may not capture the world title in 2010, but it will be awe inspiring to watch all the same.
De Noronha recognized this and continued the line of thought with which I began this article; ‘however, the focus must be pretty sharp, for we find our retired Soldiers are in great demand and they secure ready employment in large organizations in the public and private sectors.’ That money and fame continues to chase talent after its retirement is the most tangible mark of its quality. The past has a limited capacity to attract attention, but hope for the future is unlimited in its ability to pull people to events. It is not only because of whom Michael was, that people will turn on and tune in during the 2010 season, it is because of who he was that people will know who he will be; committed and ultimately victorious.
Cicero wrote that people who have no knowledge of history are like children, trapped in the most transitory tense possible, the present. Not knowing from whence they came or wither they go. But those who remember the achievements of the past will be able to plot the future. As such they know where the greats are going and be in a position to watch when they perform their next breath taking feats of skill, ingenuity and wondrous creativity.
Climate Change, Political Stagnation
The satirical ‘Yes Prime Minister’ quipped about international organizations:
Hacker: But surely we’re all committed to the European ideal?
Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.
Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?
Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It’s just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.
Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey: Yes… We call it diplomacy, Minister.
This scene would be funny if it were not for its present day manifestation in the Copenhagen Summit 2009. Or as the pundits dubbed it: Hopenhagen. Sadly it was long on diplomacy and very short on hope. Though the last minute decision to extend the conference added some melodrama and prolonged hopes that meaningful decisions would be made.
Robert Bailey, of Oxfam International, said: ‘It is too late to save the summit, but it’s not too late to save the planet and its people.’
In a sop to public concerns an accord was signed which pledges ‘to limit temperature rises to less than 2C and promises to deliver $30bn (USD) of aid for developing nations over the next three years.’ Stirring rhetoric, but how will the temperature commitments be met if the accord is not binding? What will be the incentive for developing nations to change their growth plans and for developed nations to re-gear their industries? The answer may be in the promises of aid. Cynical and unpopular it may be to admit, but the world does revolve around money and Matthew was profound in his assertion ‘ye cannot serve God and mammon’. Or in this case commitments to reduce human impact on climate change and the need for industry to constantly move forward at ever increasing profits and reduced costs.
Part of the problem stems from an unwillingness to accept the facts of global warming. Unpreparedness to believe in a new truth is nothing new. Galileo struggled to convince contemporaries that the planetary system was heliocentric. Climate change science has undergone a similarly rough ride. While it would be premature to say the science is out of the woods, in that climate change deniers still represent a large proportion of the world and some even run their countries, it is true that the battle now revolves less around ‘is climate change happening’ and more around ‘what steps could and should be taken to peg the earth’s overall temperature rise to 2°C’. Such an increase will see water shortages, malnutrition and a rise in infectious diseases, but it will not see the cataclysmic consequences of the 3°C and above danger zones.
It is however not all doom and gloom. We have dealt with major planetary problems before. Ozone depletion began in the 1930s with the invention of Freon (poor Thomas Midgley, the inventor of Freon, he was also the scientist to discover that putting lead in petrol would cut engine knocking in cars and enhance performance). When the link between CFCs and ozone depletion was first proposed in the 1970s Du Pont and other chemical manufacturers tried to discredit the claims. Eventually the skepticism was overcome and governments began to take steps to reverse the situation. Take heart in the knowledge that studies of the ozone layer are showing that the hole over the Antarctic is closing. The point of this digression is that the problem started with denial and ended with acceptance and change.
Copenhagen was an important step forward in that the world is showing an increasingly united front in accepting that changes need to be made, but it also demonstrated that it is still a long road to a meaningful settlement. The hearts and minds of an increasing majority of the public have been won. Governments are now talking, but the third cog in the wheel is yet to turn, market instruments. This is in part due to quasi-Orwellian solutions that have been proposed to solve the climate change problem. Many market ideologues feel that having fought socialism we should not allow more central controls and regulation of our lives to be allowed in through the green door. Yet market regulation has always proved a vital and strong motivator for market change. The use of lead in petrol was stopped; emission standards were tightened; smoking was banned in pubs and clubs; health inspectors employed to ensure that the food we eat does not poison us. International accord will not be achieved unless tighter caps are not only set but impose.
In his closing address President Obama said: ‘energy holds out not just the perils of a warming climate, but also the promise of a more peaceful and prosperous tomorrow. If America leads in developing clean energy, we will lead in growing our economy, in putting our people back to work, and in leaving a stronger and more secure country to our children’.
If leaders, both political and industrial, can step forward and make the running we will be able to change our future. If not the future looks bleak. Some issues can be selfishly pushed aside in the knowledge that it is not in our backyard that the problem resides. But the climate is the property of all and to all must fall the responsibility of its safekeeping.
Life of a Whirlwind
This article must begin with a confession. A confession of a sin. For it is a great linguistic sin to take the easy path in writing. And the easiest of these paths in the wood, the road most travelled if you will, is that of the rant. Rants pervade almost everything in our daily life, people complaining about service in a cafe, the price of petrol, public transport, or our glorious leaders. Fill your pen with bile, summon up the blood, let hubris reign and the article will write itself. Alas this is what I have done, but I feel I can’t restrain myself any longer. So I hope you will forgive me this little vice.
Dinner Friday? No, what about the beach Saturday? Still busy? Next week not good for you either? The week after you say. Super, what day? You are busy on all of them? Hmm, ok I get the hint. What it isn’t a hint? You want to spend time with me you are just too busy! Well I understand, life is busy. This oft quoted phrase has gone from the everyday, through the forests of cliche and emerged in the sun lit uplands of meaningless twaddle. This is not to say that I am holier than thou. I am just as guilty of being a grad A twazzer and trumpeting out this line to all and sundry. But this is just the point. It is now so universally accepted that ‘life is busy’, we all bleat it out lest we have it bleated to us. I cast it to you ere you to it cast I.
Then there are those who elevate ‘being busy’ to the worst kind of art form. Not only are they too busy to see their friends and family. But they don’t have the time to call, text or even Twitter an update. A thirty second exercise which instantly informs the entire planet, well the entire part that is not too busy to join, of your happenings. Who are these people? The President of the United Sates is a busy man. But if he did not keep in touch with people, or touch base to use that ghastly management metaphor, then he would not have garnered enough support to run for office. So if we have truly become that self centered that we do nothing unless it is self serving, then we should still be keeping in touch with the people who should matter to us because they may be ‘useful’ in the future.
If this is the case, then maybe it is best we are all ‘busy’. If it is such a chore to say hi, exchange a few pleasantries and then get on with the daily grind maybe we should confine ourselves to a void. Flounce down in front of the TV and remain distant from those who care about us.
But if not, if we really do care but are that poor with our time management or feel that we don’t have enough to say to justify a phone call, then join one of the social networking sites. Create a FaceBook or Twitter account. Or if you have one (as everyone seems to do these days) use it. They even suggest people from your friends list you have not poked, messaged or sent some new and banal Farmville pet. Trust me, you are not that busy you can’t type out a sentence. People do care, but they get frustrated to the point of not caring when there is nothing but a gaping void of silence from you.
There I go, burning bridges, frothing at the mouth and calling my friends and family lazy. But then if you are reading this I can’t be calling you lazy as you have taken time out of your busy life to read that I care about you. What is even more wonderful is that you clearly care about me else you would not have persevered though my rant; which if you have done you are a friend in deed and the world is all the richer for it.
The Lions Roar
I like to start my mornings with a sweet cup of Lady Grey and a saunter through the feeds and podcasts of my favorite blogs and news channels, keeping in touch with the third of my life I am unconsciousness. No, this is not a confession to over indulgence in Vodka; rather a glancing reference to that ever-present necessity of life: sleep. Though at times sleep is more than a necessity, crave as I do the dreams which may come; hemmed in as we all are by bills, commitments and shouts from our lords and masters, slumber can be most welcome. Yet upon waking it often seems as though I have fallen down one of Lewis Carroll’s rabbit holes; the events which unfold before me appearing more surreal than a Dali inspired fantasy.
In this sense today was typical. Pulled from a dream involving Rachel McAdams, prompted no doubt by my Sunday night escapade at the cinema, I struggled from the bed to the floor; grateful that I could continue to succumb to the laws of gravity in my attempt to get downstairs to my desk. Having reached this most mercurial piece of furniture, capable as it is of holding work, play, pleasure and delight within its capacious spaces, I powered my Apple into life. Not the seeded womb of Dan Brown’s imaginings, but that piece of technological branding which has become synonymous with creativity and innovation. After entering a score of passwords, and wrapping tinfoil around my head to ensure the CIA were not tracking me, I logged into BBC world news and clicked on the hourly bulletin audio link.
This morning presented the usual circus acts of back-flipping politicians, fire-breathing celebrities and water skiing dogs. But it also contained a reference to the approximated 4 billion dollar loss MGM was posting. A major corporate doing it tough in these troubled times may not be news, but that a film studio could struggle to do business because all it did was make films did strike me as news.
As the pundits circled, like so many armchair generals, citing lack of vertical integration and the necessity to have synergies with distribution companies, my mind turned to an earlier time in which people did as they could. Directors made movies, rather than haggling over t-shirt designs for the gift shop. Editors brought hours of footage together into a master piece, instead of trying to find 5 seconds of the film to fit into the candy bar advert reel. The world corporate structure is, and in some cases must, continue to evolve. Shark like as it is, with a constant need to move forward else die. But let us hope that terms such as innovation and talent are redeemed from the scrap heap of ‘buzz words’. Jargon that is put in the shareholder brochures along with photos of the stars, like puppies in a pet shop window. It has been said that if talent exists money will follow. Let us hope it continues to do so.
What’s so interesting…
The other day I finished my final exam for this years round of University study. I write this years round for study is a life long passion as well as being something of a vacation. It is a glistening oasis in my working week. In this sense the great bard was right, ‘all that glisters is not gold’. Musing on my exam questions and answers I decided to go for a celebratory slap-up supper at my favorite wood-fired pizza place in Lavender Bay.
While waiting for my McMahons Point Special, my attention was arrested by a well groomed anxious woman. I write arrested as she engaged me in conversation with loud cries; somewhat necessary I should hasten to add as my aural senses were otherwise occupied by my iPhone pumping out a Bach cantata. Torn from my reverie, I discovered that her troubled cries were not occasioned by physical distress. Rather it was an emotional torment at being in the company of another who did not display a cordial level of interest in her.
Removing my earphones and lifting my eyes from the screen, absorbed as I was in a series of FaceBook status updates, I glanced momentarily to heaven; neglecting to realise that if the good Lord was not disposed to prevent this scene in the first instance he was unlikely to extricate me in the second. My gaze having returned from its etherial sojourn to this most earthy scene I was met by a face yielding a frustrated countenance. Momentarily my companion in the queue for dinner paused, torn between pressing on and feelings of remorse at having crashed into my solitude. Steeled by my bemused smile she pressed on. ‘What’s so interesting in that screen?’ A cloud darkened my brow, but this soon passed as I realised this demand hid a more profound truth than at first I thought.
More effectively than ever we are connected to friends and family thousands of miles away, yet seldom has the gaping void between us and the ‘others’ in our immediate vicinity been wider. We traipse the streets with music or podcasts subsuming our auditory senses. We sit alone, eyes glued to movies, applications or documents on a dazzling array of mobile devices so that we seldom look at those around us. In trying to be closer to some people we are getting farther away from everyone else.
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