Drugs, drugs, drugs!

Since my young age, I have always been interested in sports, primarily because of its symbolic ritual that provides an opportunity for the underdog to create the upset and prevail. Jane Goodall, was talking recently about the "hopelessness of a world without hope" while commenting on the image of an Iraqi civilian picture, and in sport, there is the suspension of that hopelessness, even if it is in the eye of the beholder, that suspension of hopelessness was what attracted me the most in watching sports and playing at them. It was a formidable space of dream and a great source of imagination for the little boy from the suburb of Montreal that I was.

My fascination for sports, led me to practice many different sport with relative success. From baseball where I always hoped of hitting a grand slam without ever gaining enough confidence to believe I could hit the ball consistently (I loved putting a lot of pressure on my shoulders!!!), to tennis when I was fantasizing about Martina Navratilova and inspired by the likes of Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, or soccer that I played for a colourful and never dull Chilean team from Montreal (I kept running everywhere on the field, playing defence and attack!!). In other words, sports was a regulating force during my childhood and at times a source of great fun, when I was able to manage my stress and the pressure I would self impose. My brother and sister could tell you that one of my great passion during my teenage years was cycling and more particularly, the (in)famous Tour de France, always a great source of Greek tragedy. Miguel Delgado, on his way to win the tour, shattered by the news of his dying mother, Stephen Roche collapsing of exhaustion after an epic stage, Laurent Fignon and his 5 wins, Sean Kelly the eternal second, all these guys would not only make me dream of equal feats but I would cry and feel every win with them. I loved cycling with the excess of something that surely will not last long enough!

Today, my interest for cycling in particular as vanished but I have stayed in tune with the development of the sport and witness its descend to hell in the last few years, with constant revelation of doping and illegal process to enhance performance. It is with great interest that I have read and heard different comments on the recent revelations from once renowned female cyclist Geneviève Jeanson, that she was indeed under the influence of doping process during all her career from 16 through 23!

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6938870,00.html

The question keeps coming back to me and is self evident. Of course, the athlete in this case like in many has cheated; of course it is normal that he or she should be sanctioned. But to me, it seems that we never tackle the real question of why athletes are prone to cheat. Why a young and talented young girl of 16 years old does has enough trust into her coach, 10 years older, to accept cheating not only with her career but with her health and ultimately her soul?

To me, all these cases of doping are a, not-so-subtle, reflections on ourselves. Narcissus, looking at himself into the water, and drowning from that vacuity of his obsession for himself. They are showing us how addicted and complicit we are in becoming celebrities, winners of something, anything, and many time even though the cost is high. We are ready to compensate our fears, our lack of self confidence, and our addiction to being perfect with any product out there that could help us get an edge on everybody else. I remember the results of a survey to Olympic athletes done during the LA Games in 1984 that said that 80 % of athlete would be ready to take a drug that would guarantee that for 5 years, they would become a legend into there sport, even if at the end of that period they would die.

If, in your life, and for the same period, you had the chance to take a pill or two that would guarantee that your fears, your anxieties, your shortcomings and all your issues would be replace by incredible victory in everything that you are undertaking, before finally, you die 5 years later. And if you would be offered these pills when you where 16, would you take them?

Back and forth on the path

I had to wake up early today after a relatively short night of sleep. The car needed an extra anti-theft device and this gave me an opportunity to go east of Montreal, in an area that I know very well because I spent a good part of my childhood and all my teenage years there. Living closer from the center of city and considering with my wife what is the next level to our lifestyle and where best to flourish has a family and individual, it was  moving to go back east and take in deep breath the source of where I come from and realizing how much I wanted to get away from it!

There is nothing new or revolutionary about where I come from... like so many North Americans and even people from other parts of the world, I dreamed, wept and imagined escaping from the Mega mall, huge avenues and parking lot where as a pedestrian, there is no comfortable place for something other than cars and malls. I never realized before today how much I disliked the place and how many emotional memories are connected to the experience of life in the suburb as I lived it in the city of Montreal. It made me realize that with my Haitian and Quebec origins, my modest upbringing  where the ideal place of inner confrontation. Growing up, there was the world outside my religious and culturally time zoned education and the source of conflict it brought as a native canadian, growing up in an Haitian cultural context.

So this blog will be dedicated to what I considered the path, the invisible road that we start to trace since our first day on earth and probably before too. I will share here, what the view is like for me. Today, when I look back at my origins, my religious and cultural background, the current state of my life and the profound shift that life is asking us to do every day. I feel inspired, playful, and I feel ready to leave a bit of my seriousness and sense that every thing should be perfect just to taste the pleasure of sharing. Welcome on the path, hopefully, I will see you often here and beyond. I feel artful, fearless and full of heart.