Why do we revere Olympians?
I am attracted to excellence in every and any form: beauty, prowess, intelligence, discipline, profession, spiritual, and even social. It stirs me, sometimes I want to attack it, other times bow down to it; at best, I sit and stare, awestruck.
Olympians are the penultimate display of the closest humans can inch to physical perfection, excellence. I quiver at their attainment. But, in my stubborn way, I think I could be an Olympian. I'm not afraid of dedicating myself to the Olympus, but feel constrained by duty against it.
I value Olympians not for the strength, but for their ability to dream. When I surrender to duty, they expand their sphere of influence and create their own duty. Where I succumb to obligations, they live deprived of obligement. It's not the money, the unmet chores, the unrested nights- they don't mind having all or none. They want, at any expense, ONE thing- then they work like dogs to attain it: victory. It's not people, principles, or power: it's movement.
An Olympian is drilled off the sweat dripping from his own brow into his eyes, not the shadow of a competitor; It's the blood, the rush, the instinct rising through the ball in the throat, the waking up with tired eyes and pursuing a vision. It's willing to sacrifice ideals for a stronger, nobler, universal and non-individual ideal and to sacrifice YOURSELF on the altar of perfection of discipline, dedication, and obedience. It's sleeping only so you can wake up again for tomorrow, running for a known reason, non-nebulous fantasy. Going forward, forward, forward, passing Hell on your heels and dreaming of that gauntness in your limbs, taunt mind, killing speed, forever endurance.
It's tomorrow comes today because you worked that much harder. Tomorrow IS today, and there is NO tomorrow.
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