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Joe Root is the captain of England, and has been since February of 2017. He’s also one of the top five best batsman in the world right now. He’s not a towering presence at only six foot tall, and he’s soft spoken and a little baby faced, but he hits centuries, and he wins, and has won the respect of cricketers past and present the world over.

He hasn’t had the best Test series in the Caribbean this winter. As a captain, he’s gotten a lot wrong, and his batting has fallen off a cliff.

But Joe Root’s last few days have been a lot better. He scored a lovely century at Gros Islet in his second innings to put England firmly in the ascendancy. But more important than that, he called out an opponent for using a homophobic slur. No one is saying what Gabriel said, but Root didn’t like it, and so he said something. It seems like such a simple thing, but I think it took more bravery than any of this match winning knocks combined. It would have been so much easier to just keep quiet. But he didn’t. He held true to his convictions, and put Gabriel in his place. And it took on even more weight considering how well respected Root is among his peers.

And with that, cricket took a massive leap into the 21st century, opening doors to new fans, new players; young people who might now see that cricket is a safe place for them.

The game still has its issues, for sure, with race and gender and homophobia. But this one small bit of bravery from Root will do more for the sport than any “all are welcome” PR campaign could ever do.

*

England just clinched the dead rubber against the West Indies, after a courageous 102 not out from Roston Chase forced the game into its fourth day — to hold your nerve when your team is collapsing around you is one of my favorite things in the game.

For England, it was a meaningless result, of course, but one they really had to win if they wanted to save any sort of face.

The result comes with a bit of an asterisk, of course, as the Windies’ captain and talisman, Jason Holder, had to serve a one match ban due to slow over rates in the first two Tests.

Now, this is one of cricket’s little intricacies that even the veteran fans get annoyed with. Ostensibly, the rules make sense: 15 overs an hour is the target rate for captains to hit, it keeps the game moving, makes sure that fans get all the overs that they paid for, and ensures that both teams have an equal shot at winning the match. But it can get tricky, especially if you employ more quicks than spinners, as the quicks take far longer to work through an over than the spinners do, and then when you add in match bans for the captains of the slower team, it gets even trickier. On top of all that, the bans feel arbitrary and tend to affect everyone but the “big three” Test nations (India, England and Australia).

And so with that in mind: full credit to Root and England for the win, but that asterisk next to the W looms large, almost as large as Jason Holder’s wing span.

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Elsewhere, Bangladesh are in New Zealand for a trio of ODIs. We will learn a lot about New Zealand in those three matches. Are they good enough to compete for a spot in a World Cup Final? Are they the true dark horse? Or are they just not quiet good enough? Bangladesh are not England or India or South Africa, but they are a tricky side that can test teams not fully prepared.

Also of note, what should be an interesting two Test series between South Africa and Sri Lanka kicks off tomorrow. Those two Tests are followed by five ODIs. Another test for another side that has dreams of lifting the trophy this summer in England, South Africa in this case.

Lots of cricket, just like always.

Until tomorrow.

Now, I am no economist, but I do believe that the best way to make a recession happen is for “experts” to talk about how they are worried one might be on the horizon. People hear that, they get worried, they stop buying, and boom: recession.

Which is why I take umbrage with ICC Chairman Shashank Manohar’s comments today, as reported by Cricinfo: “… Test cricket is actually dying to be honest.” The best way to kill Test cricket, is to say it’s dying, over and over again.

But it’s almost more than that.

Manohar made the comments in relation to the World Test Championship, due to start (finally) after this summer’s World Cup, and how it might just be the shot in the arm Test cricket needs. He went on to back up his statement using television ratings and the like.

Fine. I get it. T20 does get better ratings, but not for the reasons that Manohar thinks. His reasoning is that people don’t have the time these days to tune into a five day match. Bullshit. They never did. And while the ratings might be down for Test cricket, people are still watching golf tournaments, which are more or less four day matches.

No, Test cricket’s ratings are down because the ICC and national boards invented a format in their own game that actively competes with it. Will people choose a three hour match over a five day one? Maybe, if you shove it down their throats. Which is more or less what they are doing, as domestic T20 leagues run rampant across the globe and boards actively neglect to develop batsmen who can succeed in the game’s longer formats. This, in turn, has decreased the quality and competitiveness of the matches.

What other sport would do that? Imagine the NFL or the MLB creating flashier formats that would compete with their legacy products in a market they have fully cornered?

Only cricket.

And so, yeah, Test cricket is in trouble, but it’s the ICC that put it there, purposefully, in their relentless pursuit of profit, profit, profit. And it’s things like ECB “hundred” that are only going to make the situation worse. The World Test Championship feels like a grasping at straws, not an actual solution. If it fails, and it could fail, then the ICC could be, like, “well, we tried, shrug” and they are off the hook.

It almost feels like it’s too late now. The World Test Championship is closing the barn door after the horse has run.

And here’s the thing: cricket fans like Test cricket. They will watch it, but only if the matches are worth watching. It’s not the format that’s the problem, nor is it the lack of a tournament, it’s the fact that Test cricket — despite putting up a couple classics now and again — has been slowly degrading in quality. The home team mops the floor with a visiting team, repeat ad nauseam. Changing who plays what and where isn’t going to fix that, it’s about making an actual investment in the players who play the matches, it’s about honing great Test bowlers and batsmen, not side-circus show ponies who can hit sixes, it’s about not creating new formats that actively compete with the first class game. And on and on and on.

Test cricket doesn’t need a shot in the arm, it needs the poison killing cut off at its source.

And that source is cricket’s governing bodies. They are letting the game eat itself alive. It’s insane when you think about it.

First step? Stop telling the world that Test cricket is dying.

I dig this Tweet a lot.

I like knowing what he is talking about, in the same that I still get a thrill from seeing cricket scorecards and knowing what everything means.

But Peter Miller’s got a such better eye than me, than most people, really. I’ve seen that episode of Midsomer Murders, and I never would have in a million years caught the fielding nonsense that Miller did. But, that’s the cool thing about cricket: it’s an onion that you never stop peeling. You just never stop learning. It’s layers run deeper than, I think, any other sport — I realize that this goes against the grain of what I was writing about just yesterday — and it’s to the point where it doesn’t just have its own lingo and slang, it has its own fully formed language, with cadence and rhythm and a deep and wide vocabulary. Just looking through the replies to Miller’s Tweet proves that out:

“I’m assuming the bowler is also the captain to think that those dobbers merit two slips and some weird short gully.”

“The biggest TV cricketing scandal since Helen Daniels gave Jelly Belly Bishop out to a Lou Carpenter leg break that was missing the stumps by 6 inches.”

“He must have battled hard for 80 odd not out and then been put in the covers. Poor lad, I feel for him.”

“The skip can’t justify two grippers for those gentle mediums.”

“Attacking field though, he must have been ripping them”

“Only explanation is that the guy on strike is established batsman and the guy at the other end is new and lower-order. If that’s true, though, having a slip and a gully with everyone inside the ring makes no sense. Makes the whole rest of the programme untenable tbh.”

“Square leg umpire too close, square leg fielder standing basically behind the umpire, mid wicket in no mans land, mid on and mid off too close”

“I’m concerned the bowler was running in before the umpire was anywhere near in position. This game is a circus.”

You get the idea, but the gist of the comments is important: cricket people could talk about fielding setups literally forever. And that’s why I think cricket’s onion has more layers than even baseball’s: the fielding options. In Test cricket, you can literally put fielders anywhere you want, depending on whether the captain wants to attack or sit back, whether you’re bowling pace or spin, what the wicket condition is, what the weather forecast is, whether the batsmen are openers or middle orders or bottom feeders or any combination there of.

Just look at the almost countless names for cricket’s fielding positions:

Wicket Keeper
First Slip
Second slip
Third Slip
Fly Slip
Long Stop
Third man
Gully
Deep Gully
Silly Point
Point
Deep Point
Cover Sweeper
Cover Point
Extra Cover
Deep Extra Cover
Silly Mid Off
Mid Off
Long Off
Straight Hit
Silly Mid On
Mid On
Long On
Forward Short Leg
Short Mid Wicket
Mid Wicket
Deep Mid Wicket
Sweeper
Short Square Leg
Square Leg
Deep Square Leg
Leg Gully
Long Leg
Leg Slip
Short Fine Leg
Deep Fine Leg

Unfortunately, as the game gravitates slowly away from Test cricket and toward the ruckus quick-hit atmospheres of domestic T20 leagues — for good or for ill, whether the fans or the players want it or not — fielding still matters, but I have noticed it matters in a different way: it’s less about the right number of slips, and more about the circus catches that make the ESPN highlight reel.

To wit:

Now, of course, it’s a symptom of a disease: T20 domestic leagues are all about big hits and cheerleaders, so it would follow that fielders would want in on the mix too. And if guys come out trying to score 50 off of 14, they are going to put a few balls in the air which will create more chances for these sorts of diving acrobatics. But I don’t like it. It’s nonsense. It’s a dumbing down of the game. I don’t mind T20, it’s a bit of a necessary evil and can be damned entertaining, but I do mind the format stripping down the layers, making it a fist fight instead of a chess match. I’d prefer a nuanced discussion on the fielding in fictional cricket game over a Jason Roy circus catch any day.

Thankfully, we are all alive and well in an era that features both.

Let’s enjoy it while we can.

Yesterday was the Super Bowl here in the US.

And everyone has agreed: it well and thoroughly sucked.

From Deadspin:

It was a record-setter. Surely that can’t be a bad thing? Well, those Super Bowl records:

• Fewest points in a game
• Fewest points in a game by a winning team
• Fewest points through three quarters
• Fewest touchdowns in a game
• Fewest passing touchdowns in a game (tied)
• Fewest points in a game by one team (tied)
• Fewest touchdowns in a game by one team (tied)
• Most consecutive drives by one team ending in a punt

That last one? Woof.

Now, I get it, sport, like all other forms of entertainment — art, music, literature, movies, whatever — is a matter of taste. Some people like action movies, others don’t; some people like heavy metal, others don’t; some people like the NFL, others like Test cricket. Neither side is right, and neither side is wrong. There is quality and there is dreck, that’s the difference, it’s not the medium or the genre. Which is why I will freely admit that Test cricket has produced some woeful matches over the years — many of them in Barbados and Antigua featuring the same two sides, which is why the sparse crowd was primarily vacationing Brits there more for the drink and the sun than the cricket (and fair play to them) — and that the NFL has put on some hugely entertaining games — but there’s no way on earth people could stand up and say that NFL is the superior product — something many, many Americans believe. NFL fans, more than any other, consider their league the greatest show on earth, and would never allow for the argument that a bat and ball sport from England where the players wear sweaters could be more entertaining than their showpiece game.

But it can be. Just like, on occasion, the NFL can be vastly more entertaining than Test cricket.

We paint with such broad strokes when we discuss matters of taste. It creates an insularity that keeps us from trying new things, from experiencing events outside our comfort zone. I didn’t tune into last night’s NFL game, but I like to think that it was more a matter of logistics than anything else (I don’t own a TV). That said, however, I can be just as guilty of the above as anyone else.

There’s quality, and there’s dreck. Just because it’s the NFL doesn’t mean it’s consistently one or the other, same deal with Test cricket. But this past weekend, the NFL was surely pure dreck, while Test cricket was a real joy down in Antigua.

And, so, NFL fans, give cricket a chance, you might be disappointed, but you also might not be, and either way: you can say you tried something new. And you will have something to flip over to during another interminable five hour game that’s 90% commercials. Oh, wait, there I go again. I promise to give your game another chance, now and again, just give mine the same courtesy.

Related: Last night while you slept.

Until tomorrow.

 

 

After Australia’s first Test win on English soil in 1882, a satirical obituary for English cricket was published in The Sporting Times. English cricket had died, it said, and “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia” for burial. Hence, the Ashes.

Yesterday, after the Windies wrapped up the second Test against in England in Antigua, James Morgan, writing for his really great blog, The Full Toss, said, more or less, that the ECB had no interest in the long format of the game and that unless something changes, English test teams outside of England are screwed, and that there’s zero ambition from the board room to change that. Which is just a fancy way of saying that English cricket died yesterday afternoon at the Sir Vivi Oval.

Meanwhile, writing for the Independent, Jonathan Liew said that:

We frequently hear about players exploring the outer limits of their talent. We hear a lot less about exploring the inner limits. How long can you stay in the fight? How far are you willing to go in order to find a way? How much, ultimately, do you really, really not want to get out? But England don’t really seem that interested in those sorts of questions. Perhaps because they’re terrified of what they might find. Perhaps they’re worried that, if they deconstruct their games and search deep within, they might find nothing at all.

“In a sense, it’s a form of intellectual laziness,” he continues. “A fundamental inability to reflect, a fundamental absence of thought.”

Yikes.

And that’s just two sources. England cricket fans from the sportswriters to the average fans were collectively losing their shit yesterday. The gist of it is summed up in James’ post: the ECB doesn’t give a shit about anything but turning a profit, and are slowing strangling the Test game to death.

And he/they might be right. This might be the final nail for Test cricket in England. Writes Morgan: “(W)hat young player coming through the system wants to score 1,000 runs in the championship when they can make a lot more money in a hell of a lot less time by prostituting themselves to a shiny new Hundred franchise from next summer onwards?”

I don’t have an answer to that.

Wait. Yes I do. And his name is Shimron Hetmyer.

22 years old. Raised on the NBA and the IPL during a time of terrible West Indian cricket teams. But there he is, donning the whites and grinding out runs all the same. Why? Because the glory — the real glory — is in the five day game. Despite all the ECB’s efforts to the contrary, it’s Test cricket that turns heads, that makes kids want to be cricketers. It was that way before, it is that way now, and it will be that way forever.

This is a blip, not a trend. A speed bump, not a roadblock. English cricket didn’t die in 1882. And it didn’t die yesterday in Antigua. Yes, there are problems, and yes they need to work toward solutions, but an Ashes series win this summer in front of packed houses will inspire ten times the kids than next summer’s farcical “Hundred” will. Kids are smart. They see through the bullshit. They know the real heroes are the ones scoring those 1,000 Championship runs and winning Test matches all over the world.

Until tomorrow.

 

The shadows are long in Antigua, as West Indies look to bat out the final few overs without losing a wicket. The day started off in their favor, as they won the toss and elected to bowl on a tricky pitch, taking a quick four wickets before Bairstow’s smash and grab half century and a lovely and calm partnership between Foakes and Ali steadied the ship. But it wasn’t enough and just like in Barbados England were bowled out for well below a par score, but at least they got into the triple digits this time around.

England’s attack came in with both guns — Anderson and Broad, the latter with something to prove after being dropped for the first Test — blazing and looked to take at least one or two wickets off the Windies in the tricky light, but the pitch flattened out and despite all their best efforts, Brathwaite and Campbell are holding firm. If they can see out the day, it will surely put them on top heading into the second day of the Test.

And, so, an intriguing day of Test cricket, but not one that will last long in memory. Just a good day out in the Caribbean sun, the sounds of the game keeping time, counting out the rhythm of an Antiguan January day.

The final over the of the day was just bowled, and Brathwaite and Campbell did indeed survive the session, putting the Windies clearly on top. And so that completes the story of the day: partnerships. If not for the late wicket stand of Foakes and Ali, England are in far deeper trouble. And if Campbell and Brathwaite don’t get through the new ball and see out the day, then the wickets could have fallen like dominos, but instead they open the day tomorrow with fresh legs and fresh eyes and fresh plans.

Cricket is a team game, you can’t win without your teammates, but it’s also one defined by individual efforts. The match winning double century, or the five-for from nowhere. But lots of times, like today, it is a game of partnerships, duos, two teammates on the same wavelength, feeding off of each other, working together to bring the game back into contention, or to save an afternoon, or to set up the rest of the Match for their side. It’s rare, in that sense, in the realm of team sports, where two person partnerships can define a game. Foakes and Ali. Campbell and Brathwaite.

Until tomorrow.

If you ask most Americans if they think that cricket is a European sport, they will be like, of course it is! And they will lump it in with rugby and soccer and be done with it. But cricket is most assuredly not a European sport. It’s huge in England, of course, and Ireland is now a Test nation though I am not convinced it is all that popular there, and there are smatterings of popularity in a few countries on the continent, but other than: zilch. It’s mostly England, and England’s former colonies: India, the Caribbean, Australia, etc. And based on a vote from a couple years back the majority of English don’t even consider themselves part of Europe anyway so there you go. It’s a global sport based on an old dead empire. Not European.

But, like I said, there are smatterings.

France, for instance, won a silver medal in the cricket event at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris — the only time that cricket has been featured in the Olympics (this is something else that confounds Americans, but that’s a post for another day). And there’s some circles of historians who think the game was actually invented in France — though the texts in question were probably referring to croquet, not cricket.

In 1789 the Marylebone Cricket Club was supposed to tour France but the French Revolution got in the way (the match was finally played in 1989, during bi-centennial celebrations of the Revolution). Then a century and a half later World War 2 decimated most of the clubs. In the last 30 years the game has seen a bit of a renaissance but it’s by no means what one would call a very big deal in France. The national team is an associate member — the same status that the US was just promoted to — and have been since 1987. They play some T20Is and compete in the European Division Championships and they do fine.

And then there’s the Netherlands. They do a little better than France. They’ve competed in four ODI World Cups, and currently have full ODI status. They also won a World Cup Qualifier tournament in 2001 and played in three T20 World Championships. AND their national teams plays in England’s one day domestic tournament.

Their most notable player is probably Ryan ten Doeschate — who has been called the best batsman not playing for a Test nation. He holds the highest batting average in ODI cricket with more than 20 innings — an impressive feat! Because of the ICC’s closed system, though, he’s turned into a bit of a mercenary, flying around the world to play in whatever domestic league will take him: Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Australia, India, South Africa, Bangladesh. Lots of folks see him as the scary nightmarish future of cricket, but that’s probably a bit unfair.

What’s next for the Dutch? They failed to qualify for this summer’s World Cup at the qualifying event back in the summer, so now their eyes are on the 2023 World Cup in India — qualification for that begins in 2020 and culminates in 2022.

I have always found European Cricket to be a fascinating part of the game. Players playing for little or no money on frozen northern European pitches in front of 0.0 fans just for the love of the game and the dream of a trip to a World Cup qualifier. There’s a great deal of consternation among Cricketing “people” — you know the vague shadowy government — about how to grow the game (or whether or not they even want the game to grow, but again that’s a story for another day) and I think it’s things like European Cricket that are going to do so. These little domestic leagues in Norway and the Netherlands that keep the game ticking, over by over.

A good site to keep tabs on what’s happening in Europe is CricketEurope.com.

Note: I am traveling Jan. 11-19 to Amsterdam and Paris, so Cricket for Americans will be going on hiatus until Jan. 20.

Okay here’s some news: today the International Cricket Council announced that USA Cricket was approved as an Associate Member.

What does this mean? Not a whole lot. At least not right now. In the future, it could mean higher profile matches against higher profile competition, but for now it puts them on same level as Lesotho, Seychelles and Vanuata. In the present term, it’s nice for a Cricket organization in America to be out from under the shadow of their predecessor, USACA — probably one of the more corrupt cricket associations in the world, and that is saying something — and to actually be looking toward the future instead of looking to line their pockets.

In the nearer term, the one day squad will be preparing to play in the World Cricket League’s 2nd division, with promotion to full ODI status the carrot at the end of that stick. It’s a long shot, but not unheard of. USA Cricket is also are looking toward forming a domestic, professional T20 league, which will help seed the game across the country.

So, not a huge, life altering deal, but always welcome to receive positive news with regard to Cricket in America.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, last December, the state sports authority announced that they were putting renewed focus on building youth cricket in that state. This news, when combined with the news regarding USA Cricket, puts a nice rosy glow on the game in the states today. A healthy youth program in concert with national administrators that aren’t corrupt is the best manner in which to grow the game here in America.

I don’t think cricket will ever be on par with the big five professional sports, or even the middling, regional sports like lacrosse, but I think it will find its place. And, really, it’s already here. Parks across America are littered with kids playing cricket. Those kids will have kids who will participate in well organized youth cricket and within one, maybe two, generations, I could surely see America competing for a possible promotion to Test status.

Stranger things have happened.

And then Andrew Strauss’ wife, Ruth, dies of lung cancer at age 46 and you ask yourself: what’s it all for?

By it I mean: cricket, sport, film, tv, literature? What’s it all for? All of this meaningless distraction from what really matters? And what matters is of course the people in our lives. Partners, friends, family, loved ones, children. That’s what matters. We get so wrapped up in other meaningless minutia like Test scores and work and gossip and then all of a sudden we turn around and the mother of our children has lung cancer and then we blink and she’s gone.

I don’t mean to pick on Andrew Strauss, or single him out in anyway, especially not today, because we all do it. We all fail to see that all of life is fleeting, that we will never have more than we have right now at this moment. All that awaits us down the road is loss, loss, and more loss. Yet we still, somehow, fail to appreciate the people in our lives, the wonderful quiet, struggling souls that share our spaces with us. Instead we focus our energy writing about bat and ball sports, or tweeting about what the president said, or stressing about a meaningless in the end work meeting, or binge watching TV, or having one too many pints at the pub on a random winter’s afternoon when you look up and it’s already twilight outside.

Why do we do this? It is because we all think that we — and the people around us — will be around forever? That’s probably most of it. Or at least a lot of it. We go through life feeling invincible until all of a sudden we are forced to come face to face with the fact that we aren’t, that no one is. That death is waiting in the tall grass for each and everyone one us. So say your prayers, time is precious, hug your kids, call you mother, and all of those other cliches that we preach but don’t practice. We all know that everyone we know, one day, will day — to quote The Flaming Lips — but do we really know that? I don’t think we do until it is far, far too late. Ask Andrew Strauss.

So then what’s it all for? All of this. This blog. This sport. The phone you’re reading this on. The coffeeshop you’re at as you do. Why do we do it all? To better ourselves? For what? Isn’t that just looking out for what’s over the next hill instead of enjoying what we have? Is it just to kill time? To wile away the hours of a life that is yes very short but also is very, very long? Is that all it is? Taking a knee? Running out the clock? Are we all just living life like it’s 4:30pm on a Friday and we’re at the office waiting for the boss to leave or 5pm to come so we can clear out? Is that all this is?

Of course. It’s not. Life is more than that. Even if we fail and fail and fail and fail to take advantage of all that that is. Right now Andrew Strauss — again not to single him out, I am just using him as a bit of an Everyman — is probably thinking: all those trips I took with the England team, all those months away, I could have been here, with her, helping with the kids, letting her live a life that she put on hold so I could travel the world and play cricket. But of course he shouldn’t think like that, everyone will tell him, consolingly, he didn’t know she was going to get sick, he didn’t know she was going to die. But he did. We are all going to get sick. We are all going to die. There is no Easter bunny and life is a pointless struggle towards the cold, cold ground.

That isn’t as morbid as it sounds. Not in the slightest.

If all it is is a path toward the grave, then of course we should enjoy the path. Stop, smell the roses, go play cricket in Australia, captain England on every shore, write the novel no one will read, the blog no one will read, get drunk with friends overlooking rivers in distant cities. But then what of the above? What of what matters? What really matters? The people in our lives?

And you’re right. We ignore them too much and then they are gone. Or we are gone. Call your mother, text your sister, send a postcard to your Fox News watching aunt. But also read that Tana French novel. Drink a blood Mary in the late morning with your partner over a plate of olives and cheese. Be with people. Be alone. Take your time. Life is short, but it is also long. Don’t regret, fall in love, make the most of every second but also don’t worry if you don’t.

There is this picture on the windowsill next to my kitchen table where I do all of my writing. It was taken in the summer of 1982 on the northern shore of Lake Michigan, right off US2 in the upper peninsula. It is me with my dad and my little brother. I am six years old, my brother maybe six months, my father 33. My brother is riding in a carrier on my dad’s back. I am holding his hand and wearing a red windbreaker that I loved. We both have our jeans rolled up against the sand and the surf. It is sunny but must also be chilly. The picture is taken from behind. Dad is looking at a seagull taking flight against a blue-gray sky fast with low cloud.

It was a nothing moment to him, to me. Another blip of a life where we were always moving toward the next big thing. But it’s a moment enshrined forever that I relive dozens of times a day. How many moments of our lives do we get like this? Our short but long lives? 20? Maybe 25? And no one knows when they will come. They just come. And so we do this — these moments, these strivings, these struggles, big and small — because we never know what moments will last forever. So we make them all count. Or at least we try to. And that’s why we do all of this. Looking for that moment that will last forever. Sometimes it’s with a loved one, sometimes co-workers, sometimes friends on the internet.

And so Andrew Strauss’ wife, Ruth, is dead of cancer and at 46. And so we ask what is it all for? Or, more poignantly, what was it all for? Because the was is all we know. And that’s the important part. All that we know is in the past. Just as we will be. And so we things that we thing will matter, will last, will outlive is. A blog post. A picture on a windowsill.

It doesn’t matter what those things are. As long as they are. And they can come in every form imaginable: a walk on a beach, a century in Sri Lanka, a blog post, a phone call to your mother.

Just do it, Nike has told us for a generation.

There’s no better advice. It doesn’t matter what you do. Just do.

Just do.