It being summer I've been watching copious amounts of cricket and avoiding anything too intellectual or work-related. As an additional aid to this vegetative process, I've been reading some of the cricket memoirs that have been released over the past few months. There is Michael Clarke's My Story, Chris Rogers' Bucking the Trend and Mitchell Johnson's Resilient. I find the thought processes of elite athletes fascinating. To succeed at their sport, they have to be really focused - not just when they are performing at the elite level, but on the way up. They have to make sacrifices, as do those around them - their parents, siblings, partners and children. They have to do this amidst a huge amount of uncertainty. They might not make the grade. An injury or an illness can end their career at a single stroke. Their best may not be quite good enough. These three men travelled quite different pathways to the top. Michael Clarke was perhaps the most focused
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson