Olympics 2012: What Color Optimism?

By Dr. Russ,

What color(s) comes to mind when you think of the Olympics?   The three most obvious colors are GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE.   If you’re from the USA, you might answer RED, WHITE, and BLUE; or from Germany BLACK, RED and GOLD; or from any nation, the national colors of your country.  

My answer is none of the above.  I argue that the proper color of Olympic Optimism is RED!

Why do I nominate RED as the official color of the Olympic Optimism?  Because Olympic Optimism comes directly from BLOOD, SWEAT and TEARS.  I know NBC and all the news media focus on the color GOLD.   As I have blogged before, less than 3% of those competing will win a Gold Medal, and less than 9% a medal of any color. 

Every athlete in the Olympics past and present has their personal story of “blood, sweat, and tears;” a story of overcoming setbacks of pain and injury, come from behind “underdog” victories, and holding back tears while managing the disappointment of defeat.

Just a few days ago, Jordyn Wieber, a U.S.A. favorite for an individual medal in the Women’s All Around Gymnastics competition, was locked out of competing in the final of the event because two of her teammates unexpectedly outscored her; only two athletes from a country can compete in the final, a rule the famed coach Bela Karolyi loudly denounced.   

Seimone Augustus a superstar on the Gold medal favored, USA Olympic Women’s Basketball team has recovered from anterior cruciate ligament surgery and the removal of 3 fibroid tumors followed by a hysterectomy in the last several years.  One tumor was the size of a bowling ball. 

In the 4^th century, Gregory of Nyssa wrote about virtue and perfection.  He taught that virtue could only be sought for its own sake.  Seeking to be virtuous for God’s approval or the approval of others or for obtaining glory or riches on earth only undermines and negates virtue.  According to Saint Gregory, perfection cannot be achieved by any human, but living a life in the pursuit of ever improving perfection just for the sake of constant improvement and getting better and better in skill or character is the way of virtue modeled by Moses. "With no stopping place in the spiritual quest for perfection, our journey has no limit. But even though perfection is unattainable and impossible, Gregory encourages us that "by attaining even a part we gain a great deal." (The Journey with Jesus: Book Notes, Reviews by Dan Clendenin).

Sure these athletes would all love to win a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal.  But, it is only a realistic goal for, at best, 25% of the competitors who know only 10% will actually win one.   Most would have rated Jordyn Weiber’s chances of winning an individual gold at 95%, not just 75%.  A clear favorite to win an individual gold in the women’s all around, she faced the obstacles of an Olympic rule and chances for her own potential missteps in any given performance moment.  Circumstances not under her control.

As I write this blog, I learn that the USA Women’s Olympic Team has won a team Gold Medal to which Jordyn made a major contribution.  I ask: Is the color of an Individual Gold Medal any different than the color of Team Gold?

I argue that there is only way that the athletes who make it to this level of competition have survived, overcome and continued the pursuit of excellence, athletic virtue, if you will.  They play on because they enjoy and love the sport for its own sake. 

They endure and strive to perform better and better not to win a medal or best another, but because they have internalized the virtue of the value of doing their individual best, in any given moment, for its own sake; for the intrinsic reward of self-improvement and having tried again and again to get better and better because that is the ultimate good and value of sport competition.

In this way, pursuing a sport for the sake of the love of the sport and constant self-improvement becomes life and character transforming.  The News Media with there emphasis on outcome and winning confuse and distract us from the value of the Olympic Games and their true colors – BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS.  Oh, and by the way, the true taste of the Games is SALTY not SWEET!

NCAA Breathes Fresh Air of Optimism Over Stench of Pessimism of Penn State and Paterno

By Dr. Russ,

Optimism for the victims of Sandusky and the cover up by Penn Sate and Paterno can only come from changes in the institutional culture that allowed the abuse to go on for more than a decade; not only the institutional culture of Penn State but also every other institution of higher education in the country. 

Until every janitor, graduate assistant, or other vulnerable employee of these institutions can feel supported instead of threatened for reporting an instance of observed or suspected child abuse, the culture will not have changed.

In my opinion, the NCAA action brings hope of the possibility of real institutional culture change on this issue.  While the NCAA is of these institutions it is also above them and thus has the leverage to turn hope for the victims and end of abuse into the reality of optimism that this heinous act can be curtailed and future victims protected.

In a prior blog post, I wrote about a case of child abuse in an institution of higher learning that occurred some 25 years ago and about which I had direct knowledge.  In that case the local police and the administrators directly in charge of the perpetrator were able to have that individual removed from his job, but not before the university top echelon claimed the individual was not their employee, referring to the issue as an assault; no mention of sexual abuse of a minor.  The institutional cover up was swift and protective of image, all at once.

In the end, the public never knew what happened, the victim was cognitively impaired and thus became an unreliable witness.  The police had a trail of evidence implicating the perpetrator in child abuse cases all across the country.  While the perpetrator lost his job, he was never convicted, received a years back pay upon threat of law suit, and went on unencumbered to possibly find other employment around unsuspecting children whom he could continue to abuse. 

Meanwhile, the ultimate aftermath and “slap in the face” came in the form of a reprimand of the administrators who first became aware of the incident, made proper report to authorities and removed the individual from his job.  The reprimand came from the university that had claimed a year earlier he was not even an employee. 

In its cover-up, just like Penn State, the institution showed no regard for the victim or other future victims.  When the institution acted to protect its own reputation it protected the reputation of the perpetrator allowing for unbridled abuse to continue.

I raise up this past case to show that these incidents are not unique to Penn State or the Catholic church.  Every institution of higher education is vulnerable and until they act to change their culture around this issue, there will be no hope for the victims and the lifelong suffering they experience.

This NCAA action should be a wake up call for every institution of higher education in the country to create and write explicit policy regarding child abuse, its reporting and follow-up.  Just as we did with “sexual harassment” training for the workplace in the 1980’s, we need to have every employee go through “child sexual abuse” awareness and training in these institutions. 

Only then will the culture change and hope can turn into the optimism that change is possible and can happen.

I congratulate Penn State for immediately agreeing to and signing off on these NCAA sanctions instead of engaging in some pessimistic and protracted legal battle.  In this decision, Penn State has acted responsibly to take a leadership role in self-correction and change.  Perhaps in four years they can become a national leader for the prevention of child sexual abuse on campuses of higher education.

Optimism of the Declaration of Independence

By Dr. Russ

On July 4, 1897, Adolph S. Ochs, the new owner and publisher of "The Times" published a reproduction of the Declaration of Independence calling it the "original charter of the nation," (NY Times, July 3, 2012, David W. Dunlap).

On July 4, 1776 when this document was formally adopted by the Continental Congress, it was the most OPTIMISTIC formulation of the role of government and the rights of its citizens every published.  The Declaration remains so today.  I have culled what I consider to be the eight most optimistic precepts from the Declaration and presented them below.

1. All men are created equal (Includes women).

2. Acknowledges our Creator as grantor of inalienable rights.

3. We have Rights of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.

4. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

5. People have the right to abolish a government that has become destructive of these ends.

6. People have right to institute new government to ensure safety and happiness.

7. Governments should not be changed for light and transient causes.

8. We are more inclined to suffer the evils of an unjust government than to abolish forms of government to which we have become accustomed (hopelessness). 

 

Thomas Jefferson is credited as the primary author of the Declaration.  The ideas codified here were new and bold and staked out “powers of the people” never before given by a government in the history of humankind.  Jefferson clearly acknowledges how hard it is to rise out of hopelessness and the despair of pessimism in precept 8 above.  I have often talked about how much more difficult it is to embrace optimism than to remain in the non-risk-taking-state of pessimism.

I congratulate the NY Times for reproducing a facsimile of the Declaration every year since 1922.  This year the National Archives of Records and Administration  provided The Times with a much higher-resolution facsimile for its annual publication.

The picture below taken from the perspective of a boat on the water conveys the optimism of the Declaration in a single burst of green light that symbolizes the GO of enlightened revolution inspired by this incredibly optimistic document.

Tides of Optimism

By Dr. Russ,

I spent most of the last week in Savannah, Georgia near the water.  With the full moon over the fourth of July, the tides in and around the Savannah area were nearly ten feet higher at high than low tide.  Take a look at the room in which you are sitting and imagine that water rose higher than that 8 foot ceiling and back to floor level twice every 24 hours.  That is a huge ebb and flow of water.

The effects of this ebb and flow are quite dramatic.  At low tide, boats literally sit on a mud bog and one must wait for higher tide to sail it.  When the tide goes out it creates a sizable current of water flowing as fast as 3 miles per hour.  If you want to know how fast that is, try swimming against the tide.  Or, simply fill the kitchen sink with water and then pull the plug.  The water rushes down the drain with significant force like the low tide current.

About mid-week, news came out announcing the discovery if the Higgs-boson particle, a theoretical base component of the universe that makes matter possible.  Two teams of 3000 physicists each had worked at the CERN atom-splitting laboratory in Switzerland to find this elusive element.  I am sure that some day, the discovery of Higgs boson will have dramatic theoretical and practical applications throughout science and technology.  Millions of dollars were spent on this discovery.  Why? Because the more we know about the universe, the more we can control it.

In contrast, we do not seem to have the same interest in understanding and controlling the ebb and flow of tides.  Tides seem to be part of “mother nature” and so we have learned to adapt to them as opposed to trying to control them like we will eventually do with particle physics. 

Working with and around 8 to 10 foot tides requires a lot of effort and planning from dredging out deeper channels for ships, building floating docks and accounting for the speed of currents in navigation plans.

I began to think about the tides as a metaphor for “Moment-to-Moment Optimism.”  We cannot control the circumstances we encounter every day, but we can control how we respond to those circumstances.  Similarly, we can’t control the ebb and flow of tides, their height nor timing.  We can only control how we adapt and work around and with the tides.  We can plan to go out in the boat at certain times, we can build floating docks, and we can learn to accept that a mud bottom is there and our boat will be out of commission for a few hours.

Life is so much easier when we choose to control what we can and stop trying to control what we can’t.

What do you think?

Bursts of Fireworks Optimism

Optimism Above

Optimism in Motion

White Tail Bursts of Optimism