It feels a little embarrassing to be a grown adult excited for the Olympics. I am not sure why. Perhaps it’s the unequivocal joy. That feels childish. Why would I believe something good could happen? When was the last time something good happened?
Oh, it’s so easy to be cynical about things. I’m really good at it too. If I were to play to my strengths, I should go on about how devastating the Olympics is to the economy of the host nation, how commercial elements have hijacked every last corner of the games, and I could maybe even make some vague reference to the carbon emissions required to get all the athletes to Paris, but not in such a way that would necessitate me actually looking up statistics.
But I don’t want to do that. I want to be excited for the Olympics.
There is so much happening right now that demands and deserves our attention. We should not be distracted. But gosh, it’s nice to be distracted. I think we know in our hearts that this is all a little bit silly. It’s a waste of time. How nice. What a treat to waste some time. Does it mean we no longer care about all the bad things in the world? Of course not. But it reminds us of how good the world can be. I think it is important that every so often we are reminded that nice things happen, dreams come true, and that believing in yourself is not a concept officially licensed by the Disney corporation. I want to believe. I want to be excited for the Olympics.
Let’s be perfectly clear: this is not important. It is a series of games. We are back in the school yard finding out who can run the fastest or jump the highest or shotput a shotput in the most shotputting way possible as per the rules and regulations of shotput, a sport I will claim to be an expert on in just a couple of weeks. This is fun. This is competition. Everything matters so much but this does not matter. It’s the Olympics, and I want to be excited for the Olympics.
How do we know something is really special? Well, there’s a thought experiment that goes like this:
Imagine [a thing] never existed.
How hard would it be to create today?
The library is the great metric here. You would be halfway through pitching to publishers, streamers and government officials that they should create a building where townsfolk can join for free, and enjoy your products for free, on the vague promise that they eventually bring back whatever they take – and you would receive at most a few sympathetic head nods before waking in a padded room.
Viewed from this lens, the Olympics is nothing short of a miracle. All the nations on Earth, unfathomable sums of money, the focus of the world, all dedicated to passionate yet peaceful competition.
I want to be excited for the Olympics and I can feel it building already. We know how it will happen. It’s part of the ritual now. Months out we worry about logistics, weeks out we fear that it will be a disaster, days out we ask ourselves whether the world is too dark now for something so wholesome. Then the torch is lit, and there’s magic in the air. We’re staying up late into the night to make sure we don’t miss a single second of the 4x400m track heats. We’re convincing ourselves that, if we really pushed ourselves, we could probably make the discus team for the next go around. We wonder whether breakdancing really is a sport. We ask how exactly one trains for the steeplechase. We are all a part of something.
I want to be excited for the Olympics because it’s one of the few things we do together. We have so little shared experience any more, and when it happens we are more often watching on in horror or witnessing destruction.
I want to be excited for the Olympics because I know it is precious, and more fragile than we think. The thing is, the Olympics may not be around for ever. The last games were delayed. It is getting harder and harder to justify. There are fewer countries putting their hands up to host. The world is in a dark place and frivolous things like this just don’t feel like the priority any more.
But I need it. I need a little bit of hope on my screen. I want to hear the stories of the athlete that never gave up, the one that overcame impossible odds, and the one that finished last but did so with pride. It’s all so dark outside and I need the light.
Once every four years we are given the opportunity to believe in something bigger than ourselves. We are given the chance to cheer instead of despair. We get to witness dreams come true.
There are so many reasons to despair. There are so many reasons to be cynical. But I don’t want to be. I want to be excited. The Olympics are here.
James Colley is the head writer of Gruen and Question Everything as well as the author of The Next Big Thing published by Pantera Press
