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Team speech from Any Given Sunday (video)

Here’s a classic clip of men together, in the trenches. A uniquely masculine experience with football as a metaphor of a man’s life. Pacino begins by revealing his losses. Loss is a deep experience for men. Life is “a game of inches”, of small wins and losses that every man feels. They stack up over a lifetime.

Any Given Sunday–Pacino connects the men of their strength

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk

Pacino then expands from the connection to loss to the connection with life and death. A connection every man feels. It is when a man is willing to die for something greater that he is truly alive. When he finds that which he is willing to give everything for, his own life, the ultimate loss, that all other losses dissolve into freedom. It may be the brotherhood that Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of or your kids getting a college education. This is where a man’s power comes from: his connection with giving his life for freedom AND his men.

This is what we see on the face of a champion. It’s Lance Armstrong about to collapse but still pushing. It’s Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Mt. Everest. It’s the father that’s exhausted but puts a smile on his face and keeps driving so his family is taken care of. It’s you, at those times when you were most free.

{ 3 comments… add one }
  • Leah Otte December 4, 2010, 7:29 pm

    If “couples” use this same analogy for one another in their relationships WOW! This is a perfect example of what a true spiritual/scared contract is. Soul mates, (playmates/team mates) in the game of life. Living inch by inch, moment by moment in support of the other, even when they make the “wrong” choices. Moving on… play by play, knowing that you would rather die than NOT stay by your partner’s side. If we truly lived this way remaining in the energy of an open heart, we would see a great decline in divorce.

  • Ted Otis December 18, 2010, 8:46 pm

    Great clip and commentary, thanks.
    Choosing what to die for and fighting for every inch so that one may truly live. One of life’s many beautiful paradoxes.
    What are you willing to give your life for, right now, in this moment?
    Very powerful question.
    My heart has been closing lately, it has been challenging and right now I’m fighting to keep it open.
    Ok… I just paused, I walked away from this writing this post, I took a deep breath, I assessed, took some powerful action, returned to this post and my heart is now open. I am unwilling to sit with a closed heart! I breath, I fix, I attend, I maintain integrity and kill for that inch, for my life.
    Thanks again Erol.

  • Erol Fox July 13, 2011, 9:45 am

    At 1:42 is a deep and powerful truth about life and especially the masculine experience.

    “You know, when you get old in life, things get taken from you.
    I mean, that’s, that’s just part of life.
    But, you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff.
    You find out, life’s this game of inches…”

    It’s how we deal with loss that defines our character. Indeed, our whole life and whether it is meaningful or just one damn thing after another.

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