Once, while out skating, I took a crack to the back of my head in a fall, knocking myself out. When I began to come around, I experienced an accelerated evolution of consciousness itself. My vision went from nothing to blurry to sharp. I began to pick out objects that morphed into people hovering around me. As I lay on the cold ice I detected the sensation of the sun on my face and the weight of my body.
But I had no idea who I was. There was thinking going on, but who was doing the thinking was a mystery to the thinker. It was as if I was a floating mind with no identity to root me into my body. I could have been anyone. Eventually (a matter of a half a minute or so that felt like an eternity) I regained a sense of myself. My identity returned and I got to my feet and skated off the same person I was before I fell. I think. I hope.
However, identity, this thing we think we are, is a social construct, not some fixed immutable physical attribute. It can be disconcerting to think of the self as fluid, considering we cling so hard to the concept, but this fluidity and the ability to alter one’s “identity” isn’t a bad thing at all (although a more considered approach than a blow to the head is always a better idea), and it’s always good to let the mind roam free.
Transformation is a matter of survival in the reality of an ever-changing environment. Especially because everything we know, all patterns and customs, always eventually stagnate as new emergent systems form and new approaches and thinking supersede older ones. We all operate in an ever-changing world and if we want to survive and flourish, we need to adapt and evolve or we perish.
This is true for individuals, for organisations, and even for living species. And, not surprisingly, it’s even true in football. Football teams have identities that are fractal-like; players have identities, the team itself has one, the club as a whole has one, and the fans have one too. All of these identities are fluid and subjective and interrelated. If all these multiple identities can align into a Super-Identity then football teams become successful. Arsenal has been on this journey of alignment since Mikel Arteta was appointed manager. For Arsenal fans this journey is one hell of a ride. And it’s really only just begun.