Alex Furgurson
The tenuous nature of life is no where better illustrated by the sad news this morning of Alex Ferguson's brain hemorrhage. Only a couple of days ago we saw Ferguson and his old rival Arsenal Wenger laughing together at the pitch side. The old rivalry which was portrayed as intense dislike for each other had healed as the intensity of football management was peeled away and the men could resume something akin to normality.
Laughing and joking one day, the next at deaths door it signifies the improbability we should attach for looking too far into the future.
The Buddhists call it "Attachment" a false preposition for understanding our lives and the seemingly silly proposition on which we pin too much on the future.
How can we know what is in the 'future'. We only have the 'present' and can only reflect on the 'past' in a non subjective way. The past is gone and whilst we sometimes bathe in the glow of memories finding both pleasure and pain in them, we only have the present to grapple with and find relevance.
Alec Ferguson had not the slightest inkling that his days were numbered. His appointment book was full, no doubt with speaking engagements well into the year, holidays booked, plans to do this and that, money no object, adulation all around him what could go possibly wrong.
It seems a chilling thought that our plans are dependent on fate. That the ability to fulfil our plans are out of our hands, we are simply pawns, not in some celestial game but in the organic frailty of our bodies. The assumptions we make each morning or at night as we go to sleep rarely takes into consideration our health, why should it when we have become immured to to the thought that everything is tickity boo. The heart pumps the blood and the organs perform the job they have been performing for 70/80 years.
What caused his aneurysm, was it the whisky the food or the stress of winning so many championships. Without them he would not be the man so many people revere. His willingness to banish thoughts of loosing and his drive to make his players and staff perform for so long at the top of their pedigree possibly took its toll. He certainly didn't look to the moment to find his answers other than the moment the ball burst into the back of the net. Tomorrow's game and the game after that was what mattered. Last years triumph stood on the mantelpiece and this years success was the measure he placed on living his life.
Laughing and joking one day, the next at deaths door it signifies the improbability we should attach for looking too far into the future.
The Buddhists call it "Attachment" a false preposition for understanding our lives and the seemingly silly proposition on which we pin too much on the future.
How can we know what is in the 'future'. We only have the 'present' and can only reflect on the 'past' in a non subjective way. The past is gone and whilst we sometimes bathe in the glow of memories finding both pleasure and pain in them, we only have the present to grapple with and find relevance.
Alec Ferguson had not the slightest inkling that his days were numbered. His appointment book was full, no doubt with speaking engagements well into the year, holidays booked, plans to do this and that, money no object, adulation all around him what could go possibly wrong.
It seems a chilling thought that our plans are dependent on fate. That the ability to fulfil our plans are out of our hands, we are simply pawns, not in some celestial game but in the organic frailty of our bodies. The assumptions we make each morning or at night as we go to sleep rarely takes into consideration our health, why should it when we have become immured to to the thought that everything is tickity boo. The heart pumps the blood and the organs perform the job they have been performing for 70/80 years.
What caused his aneurysm, was it the whisky the food or the stress of winning so many championships. Without them he would not be the man so many people revere. His willingness to banish thoughts of loosing and his drive to make his players and staff perform for so long at the top of their pedigree possibly took its toll. He certainly didn't look to the moment to find his answers other than the moment the ball burst into the back of the net. Tomorrow's game and the game after that was what mattered. Last years triumph stood on the mantelpiece and this years success was the measure he placed on living his life.
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