Sitting on my ass watching athletically high-functioning men and women attempt things that would kill most of us leaves me feeling a tad under-achieving. And perplexed. Under-achieving because, after all, I AM just sitting here on my ass, living vicariously through those I mostly only get to see perform once every four years. Well, itâs mostly only once every four years. I may, on occasion, happen to wander by a television that is accidentally tuned to some alternative sports channel, some sports channel that doesnât only play basketball, football, or baseball. Now, donât get me wrong, I enjoy watching all three of those sports, except maybe basketball (unless its March, then I even like basketball.)
The thing is that, in none of the three aforementioned, great-American sports do the participants risk near-immediate death and destruction should they make one wrong move. Watching a downhill skier careening down a mountain at speeds exceeding sixty miles an hour is a lesson in the illusion of control. I would imagine even football players would agree that their risk assessment doesnât have to take the errant tree into account. And at least football players get to wear pads. That poor ski guy or gal is wearing a helmet and a couple layers of cloth, cloth that offers little protection should a ski pole decide to poke its way into their flesh. And I have yet to see one crash âgentlyâ into the protective mesh lining the sides of the course. Nope. Those skiers smash into it with every bit of speed they were carrying when they were still upright just moments before. And donât get me started on luge, or any âslidingâ sport for that matter. Madness all.
This brings me to the perplexed portion of my armchair observations. When does one, say, decide it would be fun to strap skis on your feet and then use those perfectly good skis (or snowboard) to launch oneself many yards into the atmosphere, perform a trick (or two) and then, against all odds, find a way to bring themselves back down to earth without killing themselves. Oh, and if you do make it down alive, to then be subjected to the subjectivity of a human judge whose job it is to rate, on a sliding scale, the grace with which you descended. I am sufficiently enlightened, of course, to understand that this type of risk taking happens gradually, that no one possessing a smidgeon of common sense attempts a 720 during their first outing in the halfpipe. That being the case, there is of course the first 180, and then a first 360, and then maybe an actual head-over-heels flip, intentional or otherwise. From there, as confidence builds, and common sense retreats, flying around in the air above the snow must eventually seems like a thing you should have been doing your whole life. And maybe you have been doing it your whole life, or most of your life, or at least the part you can remember. When youâre twenty-years-old anything over, say, four years represents a good chunk of your entire existence.
At some point in time, I imagine, you become the thing and the thing becomes you. A singularity of sorts. A melding of the activity and person doing the activity. They become one in the same. After all, all your friends are doing it. Theyâre all around you flying through the air, flying down hills, sliding down chutes. Defying death. All around you on the mountain everybody is doing the same thing youâre doing and canât imagine doing anything else, until eventually landing that 720 or hitting 87 miles an hour without benefit of an internal combustion engine is just another part of your workday. Thatâs your job. Oh, and a big part of your job is to be better than everybody else is at their job. Nobody remembers who came in second, unless reminded by an astute sports caster. No pressure, though. Just do it.
I suppose now, after some thought, that I must add âjealousâ to âunder-achievingâ and âperplexed.â The jealousy stems not just from watching someone with physical ability far greater than my own, although that little nugget is definitely at play. It results from the knowledge that they are good enough, and lucky enough, to be given a full-time opportunity to excel at something they must truly love. Somehow theyâve found a way to get paid to play in the snow. And God love âem. Would that I could.
Not that everybody else in the workaday world hates what theyâre doing to earn money. Maybe far from it. But I doubt that many of us operating under the guise of regular employment ever feel our hearts bursting with the desire to get back to the office, or the construction site, or the factory. But Iâll bet Olympians do. And Iâll bet they could never be Olympians unless their hearts were bursting with said desire. Indeed, without a bursting heart how could one ever hope to be an Olympian. None of those people we see standing on the podium at the end of an event was phoning it in. And God love âem.
All of this brings me back to my couch sitting and related feelings of laziness and inadequacy. As I crack open another beer I tell myself I should not begrudge the athletes their good fortune, that they certainly do not begrudge me my lifeâs labors, and may indeed appreciate the fact I have leisure time in sufficient quantity to allow me to sit by the fire and watch them play in the snow. It is a fact that what Iâm doing helps them keep doing what theyâre doing. It is a symbiotic relationship, certainly, the performer and the observer, especially if the observer is in a demographic marketing companies and advertising firms find desirable. That being said, I also doubt that my presence, or lack thereof, in front of the boob tube is cause for even a moment of consideration for any of these athletes. If I and my chair didnât exist they and their ice and snow still would, even if they had to work two jobs to keep doing the thing they love doing. I know this to be true. I also know thatâs as it should be. The thing that brings them back every four years, the thing that keeps them training for so long, is not an external force. It is an eternal one.
So I will finish my beer and plan a trip to the gym. In this way I will remind myself that Iâm not completely divorced from the world of athletic achievement. I will remind myself that even though Iâve started replacing worn out body parts (see A Cyborgâs Dilemma) I am nearly as able now as ever to maintain my physical well-being. Of course, my shot at being an Olympian, if one ever existed, is long gone, and thatâs ok. The Olympics themselves donât appear to be going anywhere, and new records are set every four years, which is an attestation in and of itself to the human raceâs ability to constantly improve itself. Iâll still be here in four years too, ready to marvel yet again.
By the way, I read an article indicating each of the three thousand Olympians in Korea were issued something like 40 condoms. I suppose the competitors need a distraction when theyâre not competing. God love âem.