IS ALL THAT GLITTERS REALLY GOLD?
At all times having what we would like will not be one of the best success (Fragment 110)
Thus spoke the Greek thinker Heraclitus, greater than 2,500 years in the past. At first look, this assertion may appear absurd, however it carries an much more paradoxical reality: an Olympic swimmer would agree with him.
A 1998 research on Australian athletes who received gold between the 1984 and 1992 Olympics discovered that solely 4 out of 18 described their expertise as fully constructive.
As soon as swimmers attain their purpose—whether or not it’s qualifying, successful a medal, or taking house eight Olympic golds—they expertise a variety of adverse feelings as properly.
Two stand out, and we’ll name them:
The primary one is an insatiable starvation for brand new targets. Nothing harmful, you may assume. However that is precisely what Heraclitus was nervous about.
Keep in mind what Caeleb Dressel mentioned in regards to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the place he received 5 gold medals?
“I obtained to some extent the place if I didn’t set a world document, I felt like my complete profession was a failure.”
Reaching a dream however yearning for extra. And extra. And extra. Till you break.
The thinker of change obtained this all too properly. He knew how want may devour us, blinding us from seeing the entire image. Success doesn’t finish this cycle—it feeds it, fueling ambition and hubris till, like Dressel, you finally crash into stagnation.
It’s exhausting to battle towards impulsive want; no matter it needs it’s going to purchase at the price of soul. (Fragment 85)
So why burn away one of the best a part of ourselves for the sake of empty illusions?
Heraclitus would say that Dressel and all Olympians are sleepwalkers, unaware that behind their ambition lurks an irrational aspiration for immortality.
And regardless of the phantasm of an Olympic champion’s immortality, the lived experiences of those that have reached the highest solely serve to show Heraclitus proper.
Every little thing flows, even an Olympic gold…
BOREDOM AND VOID POST-SUCCESS – Schopenhauer
All of the spotlights on you. For a number of weeks, Olympic swimmers contact the sky, enchanting all the eye they’d by no means obtain at another time. For a number of weeks. A couple of minutes, generally simply seconds—then, they’re again into oblivion.
Each satisfaction is barely transitory, creating new wishes and new distresses – (Parerga and Paralipomena)
This sense of impermanence, this existential void, is on the core of post-Olympic melancholy. Nobody has captured this paradox extra exactly than a sure German thinker: Schopenhauer.
“I had the time of my life, and but I felt misplaced,” mentioned Adam Peaty after successful gold in Rio.
Reaching the highest of Olympus after which being pressured to climb down is a distressing feeling. Swimmers move their complete lives struggling for that one second—the place they both win or lose. However ultimately, is the distinction actually that huge?
What’s left after victory?
“A dramatic vacancy. You’re employed as exhausting to probably win a gold medal … after which the subsequent day you’re finished. That’s it” – 23-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps.
What’s left is concern. The attention that, now awake, they understand that success may belong solely to the previous. The concern of by no means discovering one other purpose that may deliver you a similar pleasure. Is there something larger than an Olympic gold medal?
Their satisfaction (of goals) achieves nothing however a painless situation wherein males are solely given over to boredom. – (Parerga and Paralipomena)
The hazard is answering no—nothing can examine. And there it’s: the notorious pendulum swinging between the ache of failure and the boredom of success.
“I had no objective. I saved considering, now what?” – Siobahn O’Connor.
However what if the reply was not having a objective in any respect?
THINKING BEYOND – Nietzsche
The proposal is something however trivial. In actual fact, Nietzsche would say it’s value embracing—at the least for some time.
Man would moderately will nothing than not will. – (On the Family tree of Morality)
Thus spoke the thinker, criticizing the self-deception of those that disguise their existential void—just like the one felt after an Olympics—behind synthetic targets, desperately making an attempt to present life which means even when it appears to have none.
His invite is to not chase meaningless wishes or distractions, however as a substitute to embrace not needing—to just accept having no objective. To welcome the void.
In different phrases, there’s no want to instantly dive again into the pool, to instantly compete once more. If wanted, one ought to cease, even when only for a second, and observe that situation earlier than speeding to remedy it.
The second step, nevertheless, is making certain this doesn’t result in passive nihilism, to a lack of curiosity in life itself.
What’s nice in man is that he’s a bridge, not an finish. – (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
The sensation of uselessness is actual. However it’s essential to overcome the phantasm that one has already reached the height of their existence. To just accept that perhaps it’s true, there could by no means be one other satisfaction fairly like successful Olympic gold. As a result of there might be completely different ones.
Nietzsche would recommend that the “resolution” lies in trying past. In looking for new targets, approaching them with a renewed sense of self.
An ideal instance of this mindset? Gregorio Paltrinieri.
On the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Italian swimmer seemingly reached the height of his profession, changing into Olympic champion within the males’s 1500 free. Nonetheless Paltrinieri felt the load of the win, that feeling that perhaps, that’s it. So he reinvented himself. He seemed for brand new challenges elsewhere: open water.
He remodeled, not an finish, not solely the vacation spot, however a bridge to reaching new ranges of himself. The remaining is historical past.
In conclusion, it’s necessary to emphasise that discovering new targets and stimuli for athletes who suffered post-Olympic melancholy doesn’t all the time imply staying in aggressive sports activities. Going past merely means stepping right into a new period of life, not simply of profession. That would proceed within the water, or it may take a special path completely.
This attitude opens up broader discussions, from Heraclitus and his tackle the insatiable starvation for outcomes, to Schopenhauer’s acceptance of the void. In actual fact, there’s been a current proposal to rethink Olympic cycles, planning for a five-year cycle as a substitute of 4, together with a structured method to managing the post-Olympic yr.
It’s reassuring then to see extra consciousness and that we’re transferring towards the denial of those emotions, of which the overcoming, as Nietzsche advised, is then up, when correctly guided, to swimmers.
