Attending Olympics in France
The streets are full of armed officers, and with every checkpoint passed, faces get friendlier, and dark uniforms get exchanged to pastel green t-shirts, worn by people with wide smiles and hellos recited in every language they can muster. The narrow lines of excited people finally get to spill into a massive arena, cosily dimmed, walls covered in inspirational videos blasting music and the images of sweaty, elated, determined athletes. We are about to watch a game. There are people raising Italian flags. There are people chanting USA. There is me in yellow overalls and a Lithuanian basketball shirt, a 1992 Grateful Dead edition. I join the USA chants. Got to pick a side. A kid with Italian flags painted on his cheeks glares at me. I grin back. There is us, and there is them, and then there is us pretending to be them. What a game.
Olympics has always been this mythical happening, this myth, involving not quite humans but greek gods on a tiny TV of my childhood. People not quite running, but leaping, their legs looking like they belong to birds, these gracious flamingos, stepping, almost flying through the stadium. They start, they're off, and, a moment later, they're there, faces full of expectation, faces full joy, faces full of controlled disappointment, respectfully congratulating, hugging in friendship, bowing for excellence. It is a bucket list opportunity to be a part of it, and, needless to say, I take it seriously.
The first thing I do upon landing in Paris is taking out my notebook, and googling the key principles of Olympics. I don't know how much I'll be able to write about busy arenas and athletic athletes, but I'm sure there is a metaphor in there somewhere, and so I start my investigation with that. I find three words, three core values of the event. It's friendship, respect, excellence. And in the following days it becomes my lens, and my filter for all I see. I must tell you right away, it doesn't hold up fully. Not everything filters through friendship, respect and excellence. But it's a beautiful aspiration. And once I'm primed to see it, once I focus on those three concepts as an intention of the weekend, the examples start popping up.
The lady dressed like a pizza slice (I kid you not) running into a man whose face is sprinkled with bright stars against blue and red, their volleyball teams are ready to fight for bronze, at the first moment of the game they are ready to throw hostile looks at each other, but for now, they laugh, they hug, they take photos together, and everyone around them starts to take photos of them, in awe of the spirit of friendship. And respect for creative outfit choices.
Respect is there, until it isn't. Like when a Russian flag is raised during a basketball game, against Olympic regulations banning any symbolism of Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. Historically, the wars would be paused during the Olympics. But the brutal aggression continues, and after security asks the ladies to put the flag down, they lower it to their knees, only to raise it again a moment later. The process repeats itself. Eventually the flag is down. My t-shirt from 1992 suddenly feels like an even more appropriate attire choice for this game.
And when it comes to excellence, well, the examples are countless, the Olympics is a temple of excellence. Realising how people work every single day of their lives, often their whole lives, just for a chance to show up at this arena, for a chance to throw a ball for an hour, or run for less than a minute. For training so hard, for sticking with your plan so faithfully, that they become some of the best in their world in the field. That is pure excellence. And it is beautiful when shared. Rows upon rows below my seat are packed with kids from a local volleyball association. Their eyes wide, looking at the professional volleyball players flying around the field. I watch the kids watch the players, and think how grandiose and impressive, but also how human it all is. Man made. The best of it. The worst of it.
When I try to get a train ticket to the airport, three machines at two stations fail me, and when I finally get my chance to chat to a lady who knows all about train tickets, she tries to input a bunch of text into a translator app, first by voice, then by typing, she looks at the result, seems disappointed in it, then sighs, looks at me and tells me - "it's a complicated system".
And it is. It's a game of us versus them, a game of masks and symbols. Most importantly, it's a game.
That is what Olympics uncovers. It's just a game, us splitting ourselves into teams, into groups, into nations, into people who are invited or not, into people who won or lost. But the evening comes, and we can wash away the flags off our faces. And laugh at the paint as it is swirling down the sink, and laugh at the seriousness of team rivalry, and laugh at the seriousness of trying to win this life, as if we haven't yet, and of taking ourselves so damn seriously. It's just a game. We can pause and step out of the field. And build new fields. And rewrite the rules. And play, hard, with a subtle knowing smile.
Because it's not about winning the game, not really. Another principle of Olympics is joy in effort. Not in achieving, not in defeating. Engaging in the process, not clinging to the outcome. And maybe that's the way to play this game of life, doing our joyful best, and letting things unravel to Olympic heights.
