Back

You will never walk alone | Day 225 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Aug 14, 2023· 3 minutes

When I was a child, my father taught me to enjoy football. It did not stick so much that I actually care about football now, but I preserved the ability to enjoy it.

Somehow, anyway, I understand the hype.

It was a great pleasure to live in a true football-religion-flat. The house itself was painted very colorfully with the city symbol of a bird holding a leaf; also, the symbol on the football flag and scarfs and directly on the apartment walls were portraits of football stars. The walls were also decorated with the team song, and all pillows had the logo and part of the song - mostly “You will never walk alone” printed on them.

This is the key to football as a religion. The loneliness. Or, more precisely: The human craving for belonging. There has been so much lost in modern society, and football can sometimes mend it: bring people together, makes us feel part of a tribe, part of something bigger.

Communal singing to a symbol or a connectedness used to be part of rites of passage and seasonal celebrations - and done with the tribe, to a community of people with whom you shared everything. I believe there is a deep longing for that in us in modern times (and here, I mean all ages since the Industrial Revolution). We need to feel part of something greater, something shared, with those we know. 

Hyping about a football team can create that and has created that. Sadly so.

Or wait. Not sadly so. It is somehow great.

What is sad is that it has taken over from spirituality and everyday belonging and taken such center stage in some people's lives that it has become an obsession. Because even though football is a lot of fun, and some players are downright amazing at what they do, football can not give you all your eternal soul is looking for and will not create the nuances of a community that has your back in all elements of life.

So here it is: Complex again. Let’s enjoy football and even enjoy supporting “our” team or country's effort to win, but let’s at the same time not forget our eternal soul and the vast greatness of the Universe. There is more to it than football can cover.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get your feedback. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

See more images on Facebook

I think I might be addicted. It was a beautiful morning with mist and women and the sun working hard to find its way through the moisture. We drove t…Read more
We laughed so much about the state of the world, the coronation rituals, ADBLUE in motors, rules, and regulations, how unschooling dads are of a cert…Read more
How we dress and why is an interesting topic we have discussed hundreds of times in our family. It can be allabsorbing and too much, and how “not car…Read more
How can you be free when you are always told what to do? When you are taught to obey? Where is the brotherhood in a forced social field, in the build…Read more
One of the things we do most in our unschooling life is to talk. Many unschooling families tend to say the same: We talk and talk and talk. And doing…Read more
Once more, we woke up at the beach and joined the early birds running for a cold morning dip. What a wonderful thing to do in the morning, and so muc…Read more
As I am writing this, I will admit I am exhausted. I rolled out of bed at eight and joined the cold dip challenge. It was indeed cold. We are totall…Read more
The pop-up event has officially started. Twenty-two more families were arriving on top of the 14 already here. We are excited to reunite with old fri…Read more
I get to learn over and over to trust the process. Live unfolds beautifully. And that there is no need to panic. Any panic works against the unfoldin…Read more