Rooting for 'Team World'

The Games of the 30th Olympiad are nearing an end. I don’t have a TV at home but thanks to my family members who are always happy to let me watch at their place (plus the trusty London 2012 app), I’ve been able to keep an eye on the games these past couple of weeks, and join the rest of the globe as it cheered, jeered, lamented and celebrated while the best athletes competed in over 300 grueling events, where they shattered records, made history, and redefined what human beings are capable of achieving.

Thomas Paine once said, “I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world…” Personally, this is exactly how the Olympics makes me feel and seeing the scores of international tweets, blogs and posts on social media sites, it appears I’m not alone. I’m a fan of Team Philippines and am inspired by our strong-willed athletes (I was in tears when Barriga bowed out of the competition); however I can say that I’m also a proud supporter of “Team World.” Initially, it may sound balimbing and seem as if this is a case of people losing their love for their country. But is that really what it is? It could be that we’re beginning to grasp what Thomas Paine had realized back then — that we’re all in this together and that it’s good to love your country but not to the point where you disregard the rest of humanity.

Beyond Sports

In this day and age, we have a growing sense of connectedness — and this clearly stretches further past global sports events. For one, we have the Internet serving as our window to what’s occurring even in the most obscure places on earth. When one thing happens in one corner of the planet, even if it concerns just a small group of people, we somehow feel we’re involved or want to be involved. A tipping point is reached and, lo and behold, it becomes a global thing. Take Occupy Wall Street, last year’s massacre in Norway, and the more recent shooting in Aurora, Colorado as examples. Interestingly, such happenings give us a poke and compel us to examine not merely the persons directly involved in the situation, but more importantly ourselves and the condition of humanity as an entirety. Furthermore, it’s remarkable how we’re starting to understand how the choices we make as individuals, no matter how seemingly trivial and little, actually reverberate and eventually affect every aspect of our shared reality. For instance, we now know that choosing to support an entity that caters to a mere few and thrives at the expense of others can actually cause more harm than help — like when one becomes a partner-in-crime when he patronizes a company that exploits a third-world country’s resources or a bank that lends money to war.

The Butterfly Effect

When Michael Phelps won his 22nd medal (his 18th gold), it wasn’t just his hometown or his country that was proud of what he had achieved. The world celebrated with him. He demonstrated how something once deemed unattainable could indeed be achieved as long as you arm yourself with the right tools and attitude. As one fan tweeted, “Thank you for doing what you did, Michael. Sincerely, Humankind.” The same goes for Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee who challenged the “impossible” and made history by running alongside able-bodied athletes. According to a tweet from one of Pistorius’s fellow amputees, “Oscar serves as a reminder to the world that the human spirit has no limits. He won for us all before the Games even started.” There’s also Im Dong Hyun, the archer from South Korea who smashed records despite being legally blind, showing there’s really no such thing as a handicap. In the Olympics as well as in everyday life, we witness how our various feats and experiences contribute to our collective development as people. We don’t just grow in terms of physical capacities, but more importantly in mind or spirit (or whatever one may conceive that indestructible part in us to be.)

London 2012’s slogan is “Inspire a generation.” What today’s accomplishments will give birth to in the future is indeed something to look forward to. Twenty-two medals, one medal or no medal, Olympian or not, isn’t it amazing what the people of the world can do?

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“The most important thing is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.” — The Olympic Creed