copyright Bela Johnson, published in The Maine Eagle, October 2000

We are living in impossible times. Anyone has only to view the Olympics to suspect this to be true. From the vast number of injuries to the runaway competitive pace set by athletes who simply feel they must use drugs to pump their physiques to modern Olympian standards, we're in trouble if we do not see the mess we have really gotten ourselves into. Like it or not, Americans are an example to other countries and developing nations. Cultural images fed to us through our media create imbalance through a depiction of heroic efforts enhanced by filmland's supernatural special effects. Somehow the mythical seems to be getting crossed with the physical, and athletes are expected to measure up to impossible standards from a very early age. I have personally witnessed far too many injuries in junior high and high school sports to justify expectations of coaches and parents bent on success at all costs. And I can tell you as a person who ministers to many people at different ages and stages that these young people are in for a lifetime of professional remedial care in later life, simply to bear moving their bodies in less than intense physical pain.

Another caregiver remarks to me just days ago that we push, thrash, and abuse our bodies for the first thirty years. We then spend the rest of our lives trying to care for these broken down vessels as if they have suddenly betrayed us. She has a point. Our culture is a collective creation, meaning we cannot externalize and blame IT, for we all have a part in supporting its continuation in whatever form. Our emphasis on consumerism teaches us, among other things, to endlessly measure ourselves against impossible icons designed at keeping the fashion, makeup and reconstructive surgical industries alive and well, perhaps beyond the planet's very ability to sustain such industry. Our senses are consistently blasted in many overt and covert ways. No wonder many have lost the ability to feel, whether physical pain or emotional distress. No wonder when another asks us what we are feeling we so often respond with a numbing, "What do you mean?"

The American hero doesn't cry and runway models don't have hips. Flow and sway are zipped up in six-pack abs and skin-tight designer athletic wear. In Greek mythology, heroes weep without shame while holding fallen comrades in their arms. Fathers hold their infants with tears rolling down their cheeks and mothers grieve when their sons are scarred in battle. Athena has curves and Artemis walks barefoot through the woods. Strength is gained through a balance of play and work; fresh air and sunshine. Gleaming, healthy bodies compete barefoot in The Games. Nature is always given her due and the gods and goddesses, though not without temper, also possess a sense of humor. Ancient myths are potent with meaning and feeling, always connected to the natural world (think Zeus and his thunderbolts or Poseidon and his wrathful seas) and amazingly still relevant to modern-day dilemmas. What has happened in the past few thousand years then, to strip our current cultural myth of emotion and feeling? The old Olympians groaned and sobbed with terror. The new Olympians cannot even admit they are afraid of competing in a surreal world of muscle and mind-altering drugs and impossible standards, they have to admit to physical injury to justify their very real fears. And how has Nature so subtly slipped from view, except when she rains on our garish parade?

Friends I know opt out of watching the Olympics anymore. It makes them sad to observe young female gymnasts who do not menstruate until often into their twenties. They feel it's unnatural. It unnerves them to see rude and invasive sports announcers ask degrading questions of the "losers," such as "what are your emotions right now, after LOSING YOUR DREAM OF THE PAST EIGHT YEARS?" My own niece, a California state champion gymnast, quit after years of discipline and dreams at fifteen to choose a normal teenager's life before it was too late. Her period came at nineteen, a life-threatening illness at twenty-one. I'm not saying they're connected, but I can't say they're not. My own daughter is a competitive athlete, and what I wish for her as well as all young people who dedicate themselves to the type of rigor that such a path requires is that somehow we find enough collective empathy to bring balance back into our runaway lives. I hope that somehow dignity and common sense may begin to dictate boundaries, before we become even more removed from our own inner sense of what our bodies and minds can bear. Stress from competitive cultural striving may be inundating our immune systems, yet we must remember we all have a choice. And action taken by a few, in whatever way is appropriate to each individual, CAN make a difference. Our well-being and our very claim to humanity (described in Webster's as "being humane; kindness, mercy") may depend on it. Let's level the playing field so that these magnificent Olympians can PLAY the games, once more.