Do you have subjects you are interested in because you know you would be completely inept at them in the real world? Where the tension lies in acquiring just enough basic knowledge to keep you going, no, SPAR, with an expert if they ever dared to walk near you after midnight at a simple party?
Mine is biology. I love it. It blows my mind to read how incredible life is at the molecular level. During the pandemic, I went pretty deep for someone who was incredibly bad at academics. Literature on natural selection has really fascinated me. I still think about it even today. How have we been on this planet for 300,000 years and given birth to little humans who, unlike animals in the wild, are just like… Hey, I don’t want to eat those blueberries that cost you $9, and I’d really like to not eat anything all day to make sure I don’t ruin your evening to the max by waking up hungry every hour. If natural selection happened to my baby, you have to wonder what our ancestors had to deal with to begin with; Things couldn’t have been good on the plains of Eurasia.
Anyway, biology. The recent shift in thinking is that natural selection and the development of tools such as hands, wings and webbed feet are limited to a basic genome that we share with most creatures. We are like Ikea kits. Genes are turned on and off, the best combos win, but we will never evolve genes that allow us to do things beyond the basic tools of life. offered for eternity.
I thought about that in relation to Arsenal. Our genetic evolution as a club is starting to hit a wall. We evolved from the sea, developing legs and acquiring light sensors. We can smell, hunt and eat, and we are close to the top of the food chain. We can’t really develop mutant superpowers because our finances won’t allow us (City did), so we have to evolve with the toolkit nature gave us. One of the tools we share with all clubs is fitness, and from a natural selection point of view, the way our brain operates the fitness module would cause us to become extinct. Our instincts as beings have not been good. We are not sharp in the way we conserve our energy, so when we hunt, we are sometimes too tired. We also clearly lack jungle cunning.
Steller’s Sea Cow was a sea beast that inhabited the Commander Islands, located in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia. They were extremely friendly and were not afraid of humans, until the Europeans arrived, decided they tasted really good and drove them to extinction within twenty years.
I sometimes feel that Arsenal look at international breaks in the same way Steller’s Sea Cows would look at European sailors. It all feels a bit naive. It was reported that Big Gabi suffered a blow for Sunderland, Arsenal took a chance on him, which meant he got game time for the Brazil friendly in North London (it was undoubtedly important that his Brazilian family and friends were there). He left the team with an abductor injury which will almost certainly rule him out of the match against Brentford. Then there is Calafiori, our most injury-prone player. He was rumored to have joined the Italian squad with an injury, training alone and then returning after sitting out their match against Moldova.
There are two layers of Steller’s Sea Cow-like naivete here that I’m struggling with. We have finished second three seasons in a row, this is our fourth attempt to win the league, and as a club we just let damaged players go and fulfill their dreams in unimportant games. Manatees would see their manatee friends being beaten by the sailors, wade in to help and get two for one for not reading the tea leaves. When is Arteta going to chat here?
The next problem I have is the players who should know better. Big Gabi has been here a long time, he’s reached his peak and he hasn’t won a major trophy…why would he risk his fitness? Calafiori is a baby by football standards and he missed part of last season due to his international commitments. It feels like these players are just doing drive-by somersaults through the European ships, ignoring the shiny harpoons aimed at their thighs (flippers).
Hopefully Calafiori’s injury isn’t that serious; it’s just a shame that we have to roll the dice on three very green players for at least three major games. I understand that injuries can happen at any time, but it really hurts me when they happen because players took risks for their own fitness.
Okay, that was a very long-winded way of getting to a pretty simple point.
Good news in football. I understand our Irish friends are feeling pretty sexy this morning after upsetting Hungary to make the World Cup play-offs. Extraordinary stuff, I really hope they make it. Moreover, Norway is in the World Cup final for the first time since 1998, and next year Martin Odegaard and Haaland will be in America. Good news for Martin who had to miss big matches. Italy therefore has to go to the play-offs after being beaten 4-1 by them.
Here’s where we stand on the list of who made it:
Co-hosts: Canada, Mexico, USA
AFC: Australia, IR Iran, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan
CAF: Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia
CONMEBOL: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay
OFC: New Zealand
UEFA: England, France, Croatia, Norway, Portugal
Just to make a slight digression, I saw this horrible headline on social media yesterday that actually created a new theme in academia suggesting that men these days are too emotional because they share their feelings with their female partners. This is stressful, it destroys dating, and it’s called mankeeping. This term has been gleefully published in every place you can think of, and the study comes from a university that has come under a lot of criticism in America lately.
Mankeeping describes the emotional labor that women ultimately perform in heterosexual relationships. It goes beyond remembering birthdays or coordinating social plans. It means that you are your partner’s one-man support system. Manage his stress. Interpreting his moods. He’s holding his hand by feelings he doesn’t want to share with anyone else. It’s all unpaid, unacknowledged and often unrequited.
This story is very unpleasant and we are hopefully at a place in the culture where we can tell people to fix this stuff. I find it very disturbing that the kind of publications pushing this message have shifted from demonizing men for embracing old tropes of masculinity (at the time by suggesting they open up and talk about their feelings) to now saying that men opening up is too burdensome, especially because it is unpaid work.
I hate it. It is corrosive, divisive and dangerous. Men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women. I’m not trying to keep score here because I don’t know a single woman in my life who wants men to tone down the openness. Packaging an entire gender as soft, meek, and overly emotional is the exact opposite of where we need to be as a culture. This kind of tabloidization of men’s mental health must absolutely be stamped out.
I’ve said it here again and again. One of the biggest mental health crutches I have is Arsenal and football. It’s a beautiful thing. An immediate opening for conversation, an outlet, a provider of opportunities to build deep relationships, and a space where you can ask for help and find people who are there for you. I like what Arsenal have given me. A deeper bond with my family. The opportunity to meet people all over the world and always have someone to hang out with during an Arsenal match. This Arsenal community of podcasting, blogging and vlogging is so valuable to so many men and women. So when I see universities that should know better feeding a bullshit narrative that men are now opening up to a problem, then you have to say something. My word, if people don’t date because it’s emotionally taxing, then fuck me, we’re done as a species.
Okay, my friends, that’s enough manatee chat for today. We are entering the part of the week where we can resume normal writing services. Check out a really fun AOP Phone In we did with all four boys. It’s a good one. Sub-up if you want it ad-free. X
#STELLERS #SEA #COWS #ARSENALS #EVOLUTIONARY #DEAD #SPOT