This is where it gets tricky. I love excellence. It’s wonderful to see human beings excelling, at whatever they do. Striving, achieving, moving, developing…and I mean both the personal…like…‘wow…that guy is loving and kind…how fabulous!’ As well as the …‘I can run really fast!’…type of achieving. Doing stuff is good. And doing it well is wonderful. I have been running since I was a teenager. I have run marathons, been in triathlons, walked in the Himalayas. I think I have some understanding of the joy of doing physical things, and of pushing yourself.
And yet,..and here of course is the ‘rub’…when it comes to the Olympics for every winner there are many, many losers, and for every gold medal there is a long list of ‘never heard of them.’
And then, and THEN there is how we spend our dollars. The Olympics is costing how much? And China has just had a major disaster and the best thing to do, naturally!…is to have a GREAT BIG opening ceremony. (The pic below is from the Sydney Morning Herald 9-10th August 2008)
Of course, this is not particularly about China. Most countries would do the same. And the next Olympics I am sure, will be ‘the best ever.’ And right now there are the most horrific and moving photos coming out of Georgia. And the one I have included here from the Sydney Morning Herald (August 11th 2008) is not by any means the most disturbing.
I actually scanned in a number of pictures that I might use in this post but some are just too distressing to reproduce here. The one above is tough enough in telling us what is happening in that part of the world.
So with all this, I feel I have to ask: what matters? What do we care about? How do we spend our dollars? Where do we put our energy?