I’ve been watching the Olympics, as I usually do. It’s always interesting, if sometimes a little unsettling (breakdancing as an Olympic sport?), watching people who work for years honing and refining their natural abilities, culminating in one five minute or two minute or ten second slice of time. No excuses, no do-overs, everything on the line in that moment. It’s pretty remarkable.
Each Olympics I’m reminded that I can only understand these sports on the most basic level. Some I can easily tell who wins. The jumper or pole vaulter either clears the bar or doesn’t. The racer crosses the finish line in first place, or second, or last. For many of the competitions, without the commentators and the slo-mo and replay features, I would have no real idea of who was best and why. It’s at once frustrating and gratifying to have someone explain to me why one dive or gymnastic routine was better than the one that came just before.
This is not exclusive to the Olympics, and there are some areas where I have more than the very lowest level of understanding. Music, writing, construction, I can tell a little about whether or not these are being done with skill or not. Beyond a certain point, however, I’m right back at beginner’s level. In any discipline, even those I’m somewhat familiar with, there are levels of nuance and sophistication I can appreciate on a gut level but not really understand in a way that would let me articulate why it was good.
There is a scene in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where Phaedrus is teaching English and begins by reading aloud two short passages, one good and one bad. His students are able to tell the difference but can’t explain why, largely because they don’t know the terminology. For him it’s a starting point for teaching.
This is the kind of thing that feeds me, the recognition that there is so much more to understand and appreciate that I’ll never get to it all. I don’t mind that; I prefer it to the notion that I might run out of things to learn and explore.