Sunday, February 14, 2010

Winter Games

Winter games. I like Susan's winter games better than the Olympic winter games (or summer games for that matter.) The reason I don't like them, simply put: winners and losers. What does it mean to be a loser in the Olympics? Sometimes that you performed a tenth of a second slower than the winner. O.K. at a tenth of a second maybe you won the silver instead of the gold. But you don't get all the endorsements. And the last place guy is maybe a minute slower. What is a minute in a life time of dedication? I'm sure just making it to the Olympics is a dream come true. So why don't we just leave it there. Everyone that qualifies for the Olympics gets a gold and then just play the games for fun.

Professional sports perhaps is a little different. At least the golfer who is is 4 strokes behind Tiger Woods (the old Tiger Woods before his fall from grace) probably makes enough money to get his trip payed for and perhaps a little more. But maybe everyone who qualifies for the Masters should share equally in the winnings, get a green jacket and then they could go out and have a fun round of golf. Wouldn't that be just as enjoyable to watch? I don't know. You tell me Bill.

My good friend sent me this quote a while back. Use what talent you possess: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best. ~Henry Van Dyke

This year I think the movie industry embraced this idea. At the Screen Actor's Awards (SAG) Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock won best actors in a motion picture. (They both have been nominated for Oscars.) I have not yet seen The Blind Side. I'm sure Ms Bullock did a good job. I can't believe that she was better than Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia. I did see Crazy Heart. Mr. Bridges did do a good job, but I don't think he was better than George Clooney in Up in the Air and especially not better than Michael Stuhbarg in the Serious Man.

But Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges have contributed a great deal to Hollywood. They make the noise in the woods that is just as enjoyable as the most beautiful song bird. I do enjoy watching the Academy Awards. I think I might enjoy them just as much if they honored all of the contributors and let the nominations be the winning and then just have a fun show.

Maybe without winning and losing no one would play the game. But I think they would. I think they would still want to express themselves with their given talents. Maybe it would just be less stressful along the way. We all have contributions to make. We all have talent. We may not be the most beautiful song birds but we can make beautiful noise.

3 comments:

  1. If things followed your pattern, Bill would let me kick my ball out of the rough. It would be nice.

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  2. I like the way you think Gail. I'm going to make sure my husband reads your post because his blog today kind of related to this one.

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  3. I would like to apply this kind of thinking to questions such as why must we "beat" China, why must our nation's children score the highest on standardized tests, and why must the US retain its position as the largest economy in the world? Let's focus on why before we assume the answer. I'd like to think the answer could bring us beautiful noise.

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