As I have developed insomnia from too much work, some speculation (mostly to help divert attention for my mind). My son wants to develop himself as a footballer. I have spent a lot of time helping him out mostly because I had a Jewish mother who survived the Holocaust with a hearty disdain for sports of any kind. In short, sports were something I never experienced as a child because of the influence of a particularly domineering parent (my father incidentally was quite good at football and thought he could have been a professional player if the Bundesliga had existed at the time). You can imagine what their marriage was like already ...
My son is convinced that 'confidence' is what is required to be a successful footballer. I've vehemently disagreed with him since we started working together. I hate the word 'confidence.' It has a ring of Americanism.
As a Jew and someone who is particular knowledgeable about the magical tendencies in that religion the words we choose to express ourselves help define the nature of the problem we're trying to solve. It's not confidence but will that decides games. We were talking about this in the car.
BTW as another aside parent-children discussions are particularly fascinating. It was important to my mother that we have 'a relationship' which essentially meant that I developed into a free therapist for her at 10 years of age. In my mother's case she didn't trust anyone because she basically raised herself in Switzerland surviving the war going hotel to hotel with her alcoholic mother with no money racking up huge bills and then running out the door in the middle of the night. The only person she trusted was me so I felt this obligation to help her beyond merely being my mother. I've done my best not to develop the same kind of relationship with my son (but at the same time I can hear my mom saying the same kind of nonsense so I wonder whether or not I am actually different from my mother or just doing a better job disguising the same patterns given the fact that I have more awareness and education than she did.
In any event, after that digression let's get back to the car. My son and I are in the car and we're having a discussion about how to make it as a footballer.
Another digression: I started carpooling after I met one of his teammates mother at a Whole Foods. She's a very successful nice woman. Very nice family. Really like them. But because of the nature of my work I don't have the issues that successful people have. I don't need people to help me carpool. I have lots of spare time. Too much. My wife and I spend way too much time together as it is and fights between us have basically developed into unconscious efforts to establish 'time outs' now that we are both working from home with our son homeschooled as well.
Another digression: my wife and I stay together mostly because I still find her very beautiful and she's a narcissist. I don't know why everyone makes narcissism as a bad thing. If I was beautiful, I'd spend most of the day looking at myself in the mirror. The only reason I don't is because I am not that great. Moreover, when you are someone as strong-willed as I am, a domineering presence with such utterly annoying characteristics - all of which developed from having a strong domineering Holocaust survivor who endured living in Swiss garbage cans for 5 years as a mother and a complete broken father who endured 4 years in Siberia as a 15 year old German boy - the only person who could survive the onslaught of such a horrible person as myself is someone so beautiful that they can shrug off my eccentricities. In short: I married a beautiful woman because I knew it was the only way I wouldn't get divorced. Beautiful people just want a mirror. Strong willed people just want a backboard to test their will against and no attraction is stronger than that of a beautiful person and a mirror. Back to the secondary story.In any event, I carpool as a way of controlling those dialogues I used to have with my son since he started playing football. Maybe other parents can do a better job controlling themselves. I couldn't. Especially given my background as someone who never experienced 'the ride home' with a parent after a game. It was just too much for me. That's why I carpool. It prevents me from saying stupid things to stunt my son's development (even though being an idiot I end up talking about annoying things just to break up the silence as the two boys end up going on their phones during the drive). End of second digression.
So my son thinks that it's 'confidence' that makes elite athletes. I think that's a horrible Americanism and prefer to define the elusive characteristic as 'will.'
BTW the reason I brought up my mother in the last digression was that my mother would dominate our familial intimacy in order to use me as a mirror (now you see the preparation this gave me for handling beautiful women). As a man - and as a parenthetical remark I have to admit I still hold grudgingly to 'male chauvinist' ideals because my life has been characterized by the experiences I've had with my mother and wife (in my wife's case her continuing to stay with me is proof, unconsciously or not, of her inferiority) - I would never do that. I act more or less the way I do with my wife, her equally beautiful mother
Incidentally when my mom met my wife she said 'beautiful now but look at her mother to see what she will look like when grows up. Turns out my mother in law was a knock-out at 55. Sophia Loren's sister, just more refined looking. Venezuelans have the most beauty queens for a reason. Very sophisticated, articulate but also a narcissist.What I do with him and them is offer up what I consider to be the right answer and encourage him to pick away at my opinion, cut it to shreds. That's the influence of my education speaking - to be detached as the highest ideal. Enough with the digressions.
The reason I prefer 'will' to 'confidence' is that 'confidence' to me smacks of going to an evangelical revival being filled with the 'Holy Spirit' only to stop at a bordello on the way home from church. It's will and skill that makes a footballer.
How do I know that if I never played sports and I was dominated by my mother since the day I was born? Because all of life comes down to will. Sports isn't a separate category. It's a subcategory of professional development.
Some people might think that they need 'confidence' to go into a work meeting or get ahead at their job, but if they were really honest about it, it all comes down to will. When I watched Mbappe tear through Barcelona's defense in the Champions League on Tuesday, it wasn't 'confidence' that led him through the defenders - he wasn't 'hoping' to score. He was demonstrating super-human will. I know I've seen it in my mother.
