flâneur

Be Coachable — Quarrelsome

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This is the first in a series of posts that have been rattling around in my head about lessons I’ve learned from taking up a sport in my 40s. The summary of the back story here is that I started out with Derby Lite in 2012, got kicked out, went back a year later, and,… well, I fell in love with roller derby. Apparently this is a thing that happens. I sat in the bleachers, watching the game with an intensity and focus that made me realise I wanted to play. It is the curse of smart people everywhere that their lived experience is one of more or less consistent reward. We quickly get good at nearly everything we try. Some things are so easy that they they become boring long before you master them. Roller derby has not been one of those things for me. David Foster Wallace, in his “This is Water” speech, says, “A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.” This is a perfect description of my experience of learning to

This is the first in a series of posts that have been rattling around in my head about lessons I’ve learned from taking up a sport in my 40s. The summary of the back story here is that I started out with Derby Lite in 2012, got kicked out, went back a year later, and,… well, I fell in love with roller derby. Apparently this is a thing that happens. I sat in the bleachers, watching the game with an intensity and focus that made me realise I wanted to play. It is the curse of smart people everywhere that their lived experience is one of more or less consistent reward. We quickly get good at near

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