I was scanning the audible.com website when I came across yet another Elizabeth Gilbert (eat, pray, love) novel that strained the boundary between personal narrative and self-help. In truth, this latest effort feels a lot more like self-help than anything else. It set me to thinking about the genre in general and about how some people feel qualified to ‘preach’ about how to do things the right way whereas others don’t feel like they have the ethical or moral lungs to do so. Then I recognized something fundamental: All these people are really doing is talking about what worked for them and about how they were able to navigate the common difficulties of life and emerge intact. It set me to thinking about my own life and trials and learned experiences. This isn’t me saying I am going to write a self-help novel or even blog (unless that is in fact what I have been doing all along). This is me saying that all writing is in essence a form of that. We are always expressing experiences and trying to make sense of those experiences and our own choices. Every so often we figure out a routine that works and then, if we are very lucky, we get to share it with someone who it might affect in some small way.
- Some Thoughts:
This weekend marked my first win of the year in both leagues I am in. It also marked the first loss of the year for the Jets, first win for the Giants, and first win for my boys’ Jr. Pumas. That last bit is the most meaningful to me, because I got a chance to see the smile on their faces as a result of the victory. - That’s the good news. The bad is that a kid was carried out on a stretcher. A player from the Casa Grande JPW Rattlers suffered what appeared to be a head injury late in the 4th quarter. It is not clear how he was injured but since it was a head related injury, local authorities erred on the side of caution. I hope the kid is okay.
- The disappointing part is the way the kids are being used in the games. On the one hand I am disappointed as a dad to see my eldest go from 6 tds in 7 touches to being the kid who doesn’t get to touch the ball at all and in truth is shoved on the offensive line as a ‘We gotta play him somewhere’ sort of play. The program he is a part of is starting to trouble me in general. The coaching style focuses on whole team activity vs. breaking kids up into groups and allowing them to move through stations for the 1:15 of practice they get twice a week. I have to defer to the coach, because he played college ball successfully a lot longer than I did, so has a sustained experience that level of coaching and also coaches a successful high school program—his second such program. On the other hand, high school kids come pre-loaded with a set of skills, which are usually learned at this level. I worry those fundamentals are being ignored in exchange for adherence to an offensive and defensive philosophy. Still, no helicoptering. They’ll learn this thing one way or another. In the end, I might just wind up teaching them myself.