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Sunday, June 11, 2017

GLEASON


I must have watched this movie 4 times already; it’s the story of a football player “super-athlete loved by tens of thousands of people (no more than few dozens for me) who narrates a story very similar to mine, the story of a man who falls from the stars into a nasty swamp, in fact he gets affected by ALS (some disease to the muscles in the body, very similar to what Richard Hawking has been living with, for decades that usually gives a life expectancy of 2 or 3 years at most.
Aside from this being a real movie, you can hear Gleason say few times during the movie that he’s making a video blog for his son, since Gleason thinks that by the time his son will be a teenager his dad will be passed away already.
What truly got stuck in my heart is when Gleason says in this Youtube above:  “My future is bigger than my past”  that’s a concept that I’ve been working to make it exactly mine and that clearly shows that my hardheadedness and tenacity (possibly irrational) isn’t mine only.
I love very much too the new relationship that his wife adapts to and Gleason’s love for his son, that I fully understand because it’s the same as mine for both of my treasures. The movie gets to a point – towards its end – where it’s very clear to see how much love from others  Gleason is surrounded by and how much of it is shared with his wife (whose name is Michel, interestingly),
Something else that I found very correct and deep in this movie, is when Gleason says that through his video blog he wants to teach to his son that life here on earth is very fragile and temporary, therefore we should never dream that what we have now can last for as long as we want, everything can disappear in the fraction of a second and all we’ve ever cared and worked for can seem to be a big waste of both time and energies.
This is actually very similar to something else I’ve been reading lately that comes from a pure atheist who’s convinced that living a life is completely useless, painful and a big waste……..
What’s ridiculous is that Gleason complains at a certain point of this movie that he’s so disabled that he crapped in his pants and talks about how horrible his life has become now that he can’t rush to the toilet anymore…..in fact, it takes 4 strong young man to take him out of his electric wheelchair to sit him on the toilet and this time he didn’t have the time to say a word…..he let go of all of his crap in the pants, the ridiculous part of this is that  - while watching this movie -I decided to go out to buy some mineral water in my electric chair (my Ferrari) before I left I thought that it may have been safer to pee before leaving my room, but I thought too that my being out wouldn’t be for any longer than 10 minutes and I just left without the bathroom stop…… well when I got back, no matter how fast I did the exchange of wheelchairs, I ended up peeing in my pants and had to call for assistance to replace both boxers ad shorts, all I could think was that I was lucky that it was just pee…….if it was like in the movie, oh my!!
Anyway, this movie is highly recommended and……rather than watch it with your good friends with a barrel of beer I suggest it’s best to watch it alone, to have the time to watch again few parts of it.


  1. http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17203033/saints-hero-steve-gleason-struggle-als-lesson-all
  2. http://www.teamgleason.org/
  3. https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/07/27/steve-gleason-documentary-als-new-orleans-saints
  4. http://www.today.com/parents/steve-gleason-was-football-hero-now-his-legacy-teaching-us-t101491
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Gleason 

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