Dropping the Ball (or Baton Depending on the Sport)

So I'm at Casa de Dervish last night. As usual, in that magical place, what started out as being three quickly became six. That's the Aquarian way. They love people. They tend to take them in in bouquets. I was just glad that Dervish was willing to let me watch Burn Notice as cable's out for a few days. Transitions. Transitions.

But as the old crew came together, it made sense that we put the Olympics on the screen. Both of the relay teams from the US managed to drop their batons, a debacle that will go down in the history of the games and in the history of instant replay, as one of the biggest disappointments in US. Olympic history.

It has to be rough spending four years training for what in total amounts to just a few minutes of competition. You get up every day, chiseling your body into that of a goddess or god, dedicating yourself to a craft based on the laws of science and endurance painted with a coating of will and destiny. You can be the best there is and have a bad day that makes your whole career vanish into thin air. I felt for those brothers and sisters. Some will have their vengeance in this life, others in the next.

It was same thing when it came to the womens high-dive. The US competitor (I forget her name) was 30, at the end of her career, and taking one last shot at the gold. But each time she went up on that platform, giving herself to both gravity and her a lifetime of training, it just wasn't meant to be. Her moment had come and gone long ago.

I'm often glad that athletics wasn't what I excelled in. Minus a short stint in high school track (which mainly came about because I was trying to lose weight and get buffed), I could never handle dedicating myself to something based on the physical, an act where size and weight and speed were more important than matters of mind, things that I had more of an ability to control. It's why athletes make so much money. Having all the right variables and the longevity to remain in pocket is literally one in a million.

But as we all come here with exactly what we need (This dovetails with the idea that the very most attractive people in the world generally tend to be the most annoying and shallow) every path is one worth someone exploring. Shit, I'm sure the last thing LeBron would ever want to do is give his life to transcribing interview tapes and coming up with storylines. Will Ferrell couldn't imagine himself working in hedge funds. Q-Tip wouldn't want to spend his days selling real estate, etc. I can deal with my destiny coming down to choices made between a short number of moment. But if it was just one, one single second to define four score and ten? I just don't think I could deal. Out.