Building Pyramids And Heading For The Stars

History is no judge of Arsenal's future

Welcome to the second season of Arsenal Wonderland dear reader. I hope you’ve had (are having) a wonderful summer. I did say I’d write a few articles during the summer, but I found myself carried away on the tide of life and managed to write only one.

It was published by Football Paradise, an excellent football site based out of Mumbai, India. I’m very grateful to Anushree Nande, a wonderful writer in her own right and a contributing editor at FP for inviting me to write the article.

If you like to read it, you can find Arsenal, Identity And Evolution, here, and in the meantime, let’s tackle the potential of this new season with a little contemplation on what the future might hold.

Oh, and don’t forget I’d love to hear from you so feel free to comment and share your thoughts. And on that note, lets kick off…

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Every forest has pathways. Not made by man but formed through the meanderings of animals. They’re not there by design but through a collective animal urge to move across the landscape. These paths are like the heart leaving traces of existence in physical form. To follow them is to surrender to another world. Like a walking meditation.

The dog and I stood at the edge of the forest staring into the trees. The morning sun low in the sky as it patiently waited out the bruising storm clouds on the horizon. Anything could happen. The day could take any path. We could take any path. We stood, side by side, in a frozen moment of potential, a gorgeous reminder of those ever-lasting days of childhood that promised so much.

I looked at the clouds and buttoned my collar as we headed into the forest, no decisions made, no paths chosen. Just a wave of potential streaming about us as we headed into the unknown. How will we fare? We’re ready, the dog and I, we know what we’re doing but the patterns yet to be formed are just beyond out grasp. As if we’re standing on the brink of a new season, oh so full of potentiality, brimming with excitement.

There’s always been a struggle in the human realm about who has the right to describe reality. It’s still a defining feature of our current historical period. It’s about power really. No matter how bizarre and unlikely the scenario they conjure up, those with enough power get to describe reality and the rest of us either accept it or push for change. History is littered with examples of human misdeeds based on the extraordinary claims by Kings and Queens, Emperors and Pharaohs, Presidents and Prime Ministers.

Take a moment an imagine this: You and your gang of pals convince yourselves that this life is but a precursor to the real event happening later in the heavens amongst the stars. You slowly come to believe yourself to be the intermediary between the Sun God and all your Earthly subjects. But you’re plagued with human doubt. You need to do something to assure the gods and yourself. Something big. So you decide to dedicate your entire society to guaranteeing your immortality. You become the Pyramid Guy, a kind of ego-maniac that orders an eternal life through the architectural ingenuity of your subjects. Everything is dedicated to your everlastingness. Not metaphorically, not symbolically, but literally everything is dedicated your ascending to the Gods by way of your pyramid scheme.

Now, that’s an extraordinary amount of effort swirling around a pretty incredible claim on reality. I wonder if those ancient Egyptians doing the actual work really believed any of it. We’re told they did. And because we have a powerful concept of progress (another claim on reality) we easily imagine those in the past were simpler, less questioning, less independent of mind, so we assume they believed anything. Personally I imagine the theater of the powerful and their claims on reality was taken with more than a pinch of salt by those who lived in the day-to-day world of struggle and love and hunger and laughter. But who knows? Not us. All we can do is project backwards and hope for the best.

Of course, the social and political world is clumsily obvious, an easy target. It’s obviously an externalisation of the emotional architecture within each of us. So we’d better hope that those who gain power have a well-built internal emotional architecture or we’re going to be in trouble. 3000 years of building pyramids and drawing everyone in profile seems a little claustrophobic from one perspective. Why not try a 3/4 pose. Just once. Go crazy! But tradition can be a powerful cage where 3/4 poses are just a twist too far.

Photo by British Library on Unsplash

Today, we’re fixated on the reductionist palate where we deconstruct everything to its fundamental constituents. There’s no Sun God Ra anymore. Now there’s photons traveling at the speed of light through a universe of elementary particles. There’s no After-Life amongst the stars anymore. There’s just the end of a singular conscious experience and a reconstitution of elementary particles into different forms of energy. There’s not even a reality out there we can put our ego-maniacal fingers on anymore. There’s just evolved brain matter hallucinating a “reality” through a combination of sensory inputs into a conscious experience.

Which brings us right round to the beginning again because reality is a guessing game. You’re forever trying to make sense of the inputs and predict outcomes. And it’s not easy. Which means we can be susceptible to building heaven-bound elevator pyramids or assuming 50% of the population are inferior and shouldn’t own property or make decisions about their own bodies. You know, CRAZY stuff. So you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to be open to the possibility that what you think might just be that, a bunch of stuff in your head resting on some pretty flimsy emotional architecture.

Now it might seem like I’ve meandered off the Arsenal Path somewhat here but I’m trying (struggling) to create a little bit of Arsenal Wonderland reality by suggesting we’re standing on the brink of a super exciting season precisely because it’s impossible to know what’s going happen. Our usual bunch of assumptions and predictions no longer count. The Arsenal Past no longer has a true grip on the Arsenal Future.

Arteta is the Arsenal brain and he’s messing with our minds as he adjusts perceptions and creates new realities. He’s attracting players we’d never have dreamt of a couple of seasons ago. He’s digging a Mariana Trench in every position. He’s mixing up the playing style and juggling all kinds of tactical approaches. Arteta is managing a kind of co-evolutionary adaptation where the team constantly adjusts within an ever-changing landscape, like a predator, ever evolving in pursuit of its trophy (especially in our new away kit!).

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When we filed onto the Wembley pitch there was a confidence and audacity about the players. One of the standout features of last season was the never-give-up attitude where Arsenal triumphed in the dying moments of so many games, including three 90th minute winners in BIG games that carried the momentum and belief onward and upward. In the Community Shield that collective confidence continued with Trossard's intelligent and delicate footwork finally blundering a goal in the 101st minute. We beat City for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The Arsenal comet has arrived. Get ready for a new world!

But these things I’m describing are the material aspects of life. The measurable elements. The reducible factors. What Arteta is managing to do is beyond white coats and test-tubes. He’s messing with the unknowable, the uncertain. Arsenal are exhibiting that which poetry is made of; the emotional architecture of the team is strengthening, becoming more robust and singing the song of intimacy and fellowship. Arteta is building Pyramids inside each player and they're all heading to the stars.

Of course there are Earthly problems. The PGMOL managed to insert themselves into the flow of the game with their new (badly thought through) rules about wasting game time and feigning injury. This new yellow card frenzy will continue for a few months before being quietly shunted into history. But whilst Old Arsenal might have suffered from a referee’s ineptitude, this new predatory Arsenal merely adapted to the conditions and persevered toward their goal.

Image by jorono from Pixabay

Our current iteration of Arsenal is superbly talented individually and extraordinary as a unit. White, Saliba, Gabriel and Timber were imperious against the treble winners. White streaming up the wing creating chances. Saliba pocketing the Norwegian Timotei striker with a nonchalance and aplomb. Timber, the Ajax secret agent strolling around like he’s been an Arteta player his whole life. Havertz, stuffed onto the same number nine box he’d just escaped from played fantastically well on and off the ball (lets’ not succumb to the Arsenal Zombie Narrative the commentators were already trying to bring to life because when Havertz and Ødegaard start to mind-meld we’re in for a treat). Star Boy being Star Boy and Martinelli leaving the coyote in his tracks. And Ødegaard. What can you say? I’m stumbling about for metaphors like a City player trying to retrieve the ball. Trossard, the absolutely best January business anyone has ever done. And thank the Sun God Ra himself that ESR has stayed because not only does he deepen that Mariana Trench in a number of positions but I just love the kid. Vieira, straight out of The Shire to bag the winner and Ramsdale, clenching his fingers around that number 1 jersey like Alex Honnold free-soloing El Capitan.

So what am I saying? Although each and every one of these players are brilliant, Arteta has created a blurring, interchanging team that’s greater than the sum of its parts. And by doing so he’s writing a new story, forging new perceptions and growing new expectations. Of course there's no points in the bag in a Community Shield game. Of course it's a "meaningless" spectacle. But is it really? The Arsenal mind is suddenly freed as new possibilities morph into certainties. History may not be a guide to the future anymore because Arsenal has moved to a new era.

So there you go, it’s great to be back dear reader, because this is going to be a season to remember and here at Arsenal Wonderland I’m going to make sure that’s exactly what we get! I’ll be back next week but for the time being, good luck for the season proper as we begin by scorching some new paths right through Nottingham Forest!