Football
Choosing my temporary obsessions
Becoming suddenly, extremely interested in football, aka soccer, was not on my bingo card for 2026.
And yet here we are.
Okay, not extremely. Just moderately.
—
I have never felt more in control of my attention, since my childhood days.
I know that sounds like a ridiculous claim. An exaggeration. Like I’m some 2026 version of a hippie who just came out of an attention rehab program, marketed as “meditation retreat” by some European monastery.
Side note: At one point I seriously wanted to spend a year at a Buddhist monastery in southwest France. Among many things.
But look at me, I succumbed to capitalism. Instead of sitting in silence and tending the land, I chose to have a career and optimize for shareholder value. Still not entirely sure if that’s my true calling.
Anyways, I’m trying to remember the last time I felt so in tune with the now, and I can only find childhood memories. I know they’re childhood memories because they come with this vast loneliness attached.
—
Loneliness is a funny thing.
It feels like floating. On an endless ocean at night with no life around.
No salt in the air. No wind. No sound of waves. No light. No colour. No music.
Like a silent spell, cast from a mythical creature eternities ago, that turned into more eternities.
But it also feels like sinking. Into a wet swamp that melts my vertical point of reference.
Every movement requires mountain-moving energy which I do not possess. The ground no longer exists as a concept.
Like getting sucked into a wind tunnel as I attempt to run away from it. And the harder or faster I thrash around, the further I disappear.
Loneliness does not discriminate, and there is no end to it.
You and I, we’re terrifyingly and utterly alone. We’re left to our (often poor) devices and judgments every moment. And that is a daunting amount of daunting work.
What’s a healthy and reasonable response to this understanding of loneliness?
Drink it away. Swipe it away. Yell it away. Wish it away.
Lie about it, to each other and to myself. If I don’t admit to it, if I don’t dwell on it, it’s not there. If I say it’s not there, surely it’s not there.
But it is there. The gaping hole. It is always there.
I feel it when I’m alone. I feel it when I’m sitting across from someone. I feel it when I’m in a crowd. I feel it when I’m with my partner and friends and acquaintances and strangers. I feel it sitting in an Uber. I feel it as I yell the lyrics out loud at a concert.
There is no escaping loneliness.
But if it’s always there, then maybe I can just be okay with it. If it’s always there regardless if I fear it, if it’s always there no matter if I feel sad or ashamed or angry or insecure about it… I might as well just sit with it. And see what happens.
—
Fuck, I know I’m all over the place. But hey, I did say that I was going to write about my frequent contemplation of loneliness. (Among other things.)
Fine, I’ve already written plenty about loneliness. But what more timeless subject matter is there, next to loneliness?
And maybe that's the point. Maybe being here and being lonely go hand in hand. Maybe I can't fully have one without the other. Maybe presence means being willing to feel the lonely parts. The bored parts. The painful parts. Not just the good stuff.
Which brings me back to attention, back to where I left off, before yet another tangent on loneliness. Because I meant it: I really don't think I've felt this in control of my attention since I was a kid.
Also, I still have no idea where this is going. Welcome to the club, and thank you for being here.
Being in control of my attention feels great. 10/10. Would recommend. It feels like a superpower, except it shouldn’t be. It allows me to be here instead of anywhere else in the world, or perhaps rather, anywhere else in the timeline.
It doesn’t mean that I’m not distracted. Not at all. But I’m more aware of it when I get sucked into everyday obsessions. And that is empowering because once I’m aware, I get to choose.
Do I shrug and say, fuck it I’ve had a rough day?
Do I choose the hard thing, and put my god damn phone down and go pet my dog instead?
I have a sticky note on my monitor with the words "there are ALWAYS options" written on it, precisely because when things get hard, that's the reminder I need.
So much of the fabric of the world around us is designed to disempower us. It gives us the illusion that we don't have options, that we are not in control of our futures. But I have to believe that, as cheesy as it sounds, I'm in charge of my destiny.
The conditions of the environments and the random happenings of the universe certainly have a way of shaking things up, but we always have the choice. To respond, to engage.
With rigidity or fluidity. With cruelty or kindness.
And I’d like to choose an open mind, and more importantly, an open heart.
—
It took my partner pointing it out for me to actually see it.
There’s a Chinese folk proverb that I know: “当局者迷，旁观者清” (dāng jú zhě mí páng guān zhě qīng). Its literal translation is: “The player in the game is confused, but the spectator sees the next move clearly.” The chess-inspired proverb suggests that one can lose perspective on their own life and decisions because fear clouds the board.
My partner was able to see my patterns more clearly because as close we are to each other, he’s not as close to me as... myself.
We went to a concert with friends in December, and afterward he looked over my shoulder at my camera roll. Fifty-something photos and videos of the show, witnessed through a phone screen instead of with my own biological lenses.
I’m ashamed to say that even when my partner pointed it out, I didn’t want to admit this:
I posted stories on Instagram because I wanted to avoid loneliness. I wanted my existence to be witnessed, but I didn’t want to risk rejection.
I posted stories, because it’s far safer than reaching out to someone and trying to make a real connection, because I didn’t want to risk crossing the arbitrary (aka, made up) lines between myself and others.
I doom-scrolled on Instagram because I wanted to avoid boredom. I wanted my time on earth to be fun and/or interesting, but I didn’t want to work for it.
I scrolled, because I wanted to turn my brain off, because I didn’t want to put in the effort to make my own time fun and/or interesting.
That’s a big reason why I deleted Instagram in January. Which is a big reason why I’ve been able to reclaim my attention since.
And I must say, half a year later, what a joy it has been to choose what to tune in and what to tune out. I’ve written more, here on this Substack. I’m making slow but steady progress on my “fitness era” goals. I’ve spent more time outdoors. I’ve spent more time with my people.
Dare I say I’m more happy?
—
I wonder if I’ve overcorrected, to be honest.
I can go weeks without taking a single photo. I don’t remember to commemorate reunions with friends who I haven’t seen in months. Or when something is actually worth remembering.
Maybe that’s its own problem. Memory needs anchors, something to look back at.
I trust that overcorrecting is a path to balance.
—
Which brings me, finally, to football.
The timing of it was interesting this year, because Canada was hosting. First time ever. First men’s World Cup match ever played on Canadian soil, part of the first World Cup split across three countries instead of one, first with 48 teams instead of 32. Hard not to catch some of that by osmosis, living in Canada.
Going to a game live sounds like a nightmare, honestly. Guaranteed hearing damage, says my partner.
But even without going live, the games gave us a reason to gather.
Whoever had the biggest TV and sufficient AC. A bar packed way past capacity. A group chat that blows up when a certain red card was handed out, and then reversed. An excuse to sit, laugh, yell profanities, cry together.
But mostly it was the ninety minutes. No pausing. No scrolling while it played, not really, not without missing out. Something that feels scarce and sacred in the now mature streaming era.
I still don’t know why the whistle gets blown half the time. And the theatre of football has been both amusing and frustrating to witness, often at the same time. Watching grown men sitting on the field with their best puppy dog eyes at the referee, I entertained myself by voicing over “I've fallen and I can't get up.”
And then there’s all the discussions about corruption, fairness, sportsmanship. What’s rigged and what’s not.
I don’t know if VARgentina is real. Honestly, my baseline assumption is that everything is rigged, some amount, always. So in a way, it doesn’t matter.
Spain won in the final game yesterday, a triumphant 1-0 over Argentina scored in extra time. An underdog story I can’t help but fall for. And if they did it in spite of the rigging, even better.
There’s a hole the size of a football where my temporary obsession was, now that it’s over.
I don't know what's next. Something will come, probably.
