The Surprising Penalty Kick, David Bowie’s Blackstar – and the Comfort of the Unplanned

Quotes you can’t quite remember – or the names of those who said them – fall into the same category as jokes that need to be explained. Spontaneity fades, and the message doesn’t land. Nobody laughs — at least not the way you intended.

Still, I’ll begin with a quote from a football coach whose name I don’t remember, and whose words I can’t recall exactly.

“People come to watch football games for only one reason: they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

I’ve started watching football again, after a break of several decades. I’m not entirely sure why — but I watch nonetheless.

That anonymous coach might be onto something, at least when it comes to me. Although to be honest, I don’t always know what I’m watching. The game — or the vast anthill of human drama surrounding it?

The us–them divides, the fanatic loyalty to one’s team, and the countless odd details of fan culture have already been — and will continue to be — the subject of many PhDs and deep discussions. Partly because of their absurdity. Or perhaps precisely because of it.

The colors of scarves are sacred. Thousands who wouldn’t otherwise sing belt out dissonant chants in unison. A single whistle can spark a national existential crisis.

When a footballer who rose from poverty to billionaire status took selfies by an ice hole in Finnish Lapland, it was hailed as a nationwide PR victory.

And yet, the phenomenon holds. Or at least it repeats, week after week.

A surprising red card, a last-minute goal that shouldn't have been possible, the script breaking apart, the ever-living arc of drama — they pull us in like ancient sirens.

The ball is round. And it keeps surprising us.

The dance of unpredictability is magnetic.

Unscripted Encounters

I played actively for nearly fifteen years.

For a few of those years, I struggled on a level where I got to face soon-to-be national team players — with a kind of raw power and drive that crushed me. My own career ended just as theirs began.

Even with the same level of talent and training, not all of them would likely reach that level today. The game has accelerated — and so has life.

Acceleration is a central theme for sociologist Hartmut Rosa. He writes about how technology, schedules, and expectations are speeding up — and how, at the same time, something essential is being lost.

We try to optimize everything, but nothing feels like enough. We run faster and faster, often just to stay in place.

Rosa argues the problem isn’t a lack of time. The problem is that life has become a project — to be managed, measured, constantly improved. And when everything becomes a task or a target, vitality begins to fade.

He calls this alienation.

As an antidote, Rosa proposes resonance — moments where the world touches us, and something inside us responds. Music that hits unexpectedly. A line in a book that feels like it was written just for you. A meeting where no words are needed.

Not control — but a moment, just as it is. Not a plan — but a shift that feels real.

You can’t make resonance happen. It arrives when life stops being a project.

When the Plan Is to Have No Plan

A friend of mine, about to go on a study leave, described how her days would soon be filled with spacious spontaneity: studying, yoga, simply being, without pressure.

Soon she noticed she was just as stressed as before. Her way of doing, her way of being, hadn’t changed. Only the backdrop had shifted.

Often the issue isn’t what happens — but how we meet it.

Sleep doesn’t come when you try to fall asleep. Trying to relax can make you tense. The more you try to be present, the more your mind races — and the more the moment slips away.

Carefully planned weekends off often feel surprisingly flat — unlike those that just happen.

The deepest, most beautiful, most real moments don’t follow schedules. They defy control. They don’t ask if the time is right. They happen — or they don’t.

“The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.”

So said Alan Watts, who reminded us again and again: life can’t be controlled. The more we try to make it stable, clear, and manageable — the more it withers.

He also said:

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”

Perhaps the same applies to everything. Falling asleep. Peace of mind. Presence. Even study leave.

The Morning That Made Me Say Yes

January 2016, Koh Samui, Thailand. The fourth morning of a yoga retreat I was teaching.

As always, the early morning echoed with the sounds of the tropics. The turquoise sea — soon to be gilded by the sun — murmured in the background.

Many spiritual traditions see early morning as the time when silence speaks loudest. In yogic philosophy, brahmamuhurta is a 48-minute window that begins 1 hour and 36 minutes before sunrise.

That morning, I started my day by opening my phone — not exactly a shining moment of spiritual alignment in paradise.

Rosa might have seen it as a symbol of alienation.

The first thing the algorithms showed me was the news of David Bowie’s death. Something shifted in me — perhaps it resonated.

Bowie’s music had been with me since childhood. Part of the allure was also his way of being in the world: always changing, always becoming. Over decades, he broke the old and was born anew. Every era in his career felt like a different world.

His death came at a time when I was quietly growing tired of teaching — at least in the form I had known it for years. What had once felt right and true was reaching its natural end.

I had started to freeze into a form — something very unlike Bowie’s career. I had become stuck. I longed for what Bowie had always represented to me: permission to break down — and be reborn.

I’ve taught for longer than I haven’t. For a long time, it was all so clear: form, structure, and content brought safety and quieted the questions.

There was a role I learned to carry.

It all felt alive — until it didn’t. Where there had once been flow, now there was control. The structure was still intact, but something essential no longer stirred. I was teaching from the outside, not from within.

Bowie’s death hastened the inevitable. It helped me trust the current again.

Permission to Begin Again

More than once, I’ve witnessed an entire football stadium singing a chant to the melody of a children’s song. I can feel it — even without singing — how something softens in the weight of adulthood, and for a moment, a forgotten memory stirs: what it felt like to be a child.

As children, we didn’t construct an experience — we immersed in it. We moved, created, paused, continued. We didn’t rush to finish the play. It either flowed — or stopped.

Nature, too, has rhythms, reactions, and cycles — but no intentions, performance goals, or KPIs. A tree doesn’t wonder if it’s the right time to grow, drop its leaves, or change direction. It doesn’t strive for efficiency, nor analyze the outcome. It simply is — part of life.

Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, was a blend of jazz, avant-garde, and electronic depth. In it, death wasn’t an endpoint — but part of a continuum.

The album is eerie, experimental, and bewildering — and also a final transformation. It broke the past and gave birth to something new once more. It was like a secret message from the other side: a farewell and the beginning of a completely new tone, all in the same strange key.

It felt like a reminder — that sometimes our most important task is not to find more — but to let go. Of roles. Of forms. Of assumptions.

Like a child playing an unfinished story, not knowing how it ends.

Like a football match decided by an unexpected pass no one saw coming.

Like a tree dropping its leaves as part of life’s rhythm.

Like Bowie, making one last record — one that fits no category.

Like a teacher who realizes he no longer teaches — but manages teaching. And finally, years later, dares to stop.

Life doesn’t follow a script. And that’s exactly why it touches us.

The most meaningful moments don’t need a plan — only a quiet willingness.