Olympic Dreams, Global Realities
We are the best of us. Don’t give up on who we can become.
After the beautifully choreographed Olympic Closing Ceremony in Paris, the Nightly News coverage came on in America. If you kept your television on, about four stories in the news telecast, you were reminded that the Olympics is an ideal of the world we wish to live in someday. Wars and harmful political rhetoric (politics aren't dangerous, but hate-filled, fabricated speech is) across the world reminded us that our home is still imperfect.
The Olympic Games celebration of togetherness in the background of such heartbreaking and frustrating news made me think of one of my favorite artists, Propaganda, and the words in his book Terraform as we strive towards this ideal of togetherness and unity.
Self-awareness makes graciousness. Ain't we all just trying to make sense out of chaos? Ain't we all just spinning on this rock?! Ain't we all just hairless apes that know we're hairless apes? Ain't we all just looking for meaning?! Weren't ancient Greeks arguing over which god was pulling the sun across the sky? Sounds silly to you? Not to them, so I wonder which modern debates will sound silly in a thousand years? I don't really understand what life even is. I don't really understand life's origins or its purpose. Does that make life any less beautiful?1
The Olympics reminds us that life is beautiful and we are a part of what makes it so. Coming together under a common goal of equality and competition creates a stunning masterpiece.
At the beginning of the 33rd Olympiad in Paris, I wrote about the beautiful display of unity among athletes and spectators from across the globe. Throughout the games, there were plenty of show-stopping moments of resiliency, domination, and surprise. (What were some of your favorite moments from the Olympics? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.)
We are delighted and awed by these Olympic moments because they show us what the human body can accomplish. You may think, "There's no way my body is capable of doing anything any of these incredible athletes accomplish." And it may be true that many of us aren't as fit or spry as we used to be, nor can we recover as fast as any outstanding Olympians. But it is nonetheless astonishing because we see what the human body—something of a shared experience we all can relate to on some level—is capable of doing. So, we celebrate these athletes' achievements because they are us, and we are them, despite our cultural, ethnic, and national distinctions.
I know all these words of "togetherness" and unity sound like pie-in-the-sky ideals, but if we lose our imagination of possibilities for who and what our world can be, we slowly lose a little piece of ourselves. So, I leave you with more words from Propaganda:
When you're a shark being scored on how well you climb a tree you might as well be a piece of kelp yelping at a blue whale, helpless.
Toothless tiger wit ruthless ire.
I almost talked me out of my own desires You tried to tell them you were different—
You made for MAGNIFICENT.
But those with lungs don't get gills' significance
I am becoming a sill standing manza the circumference of your comfont.
If you want to stay that then don't invite me to your conference
Imma speaker for the people defeating their conquistadors.
Telegraphing no moves like what these blinkers for?
My great-great gran, she mashed Machu Picchu.
Consider that an honor she even stoop to speake to you.
The least of you,
You surprised what two feet can do
One vision, execute! I don't know what we meeting for?
A couple Ls will teach you more
Than any war Or liquor store
And you don't neea a penny more to Mature.
This is meant to disrupt othering
Look across the table in their eyes and see yourself suffering. People.
Is just people
We are all we got an all we got is this and if this is just it then let's make it the best [of] it
I suggest a redo because all we do is see through
War is beneath you.
Which, ain't finna sink in until we learn to scream out I need you
I suggest a redo because all we do is see through
And if God finally speaks I bet it will be through people2
Terraform: Building a Better World. Propaganda. (P. 42-43).
Terraform (p. 183–186).