Monday, August 30, 2004
Bruce - I read the story from your link with interest. With the Olympics just completed, we are all no doubt tired of hearing about rules. Still, the Games provide a fitting canvas with which to illustrate the strong aversion that most of us have for rules. It's human nature to want what we want and the willingness to avoid "proper channels" is near universal. The only difference in our heroes' case is that he has a penchant to tell about it. Rule breaking is especially common where there is a singular objective that is difficult to obtain, and there is competition for it. It's true in the high alpine as well as the high jump. Record breaking is a notorious rule breaker, if only because the general rule would state that a typical participant cannot run, swim, bike, row, jump, dive or climb that fast, high or perfectly. Rule breaking comes with the territory, especially when the goal is to set oneself apart from the group. Often, in striving to attain success, we forget (or sidestep) the biographical data that makes it a challenge in the first place; that is that we are merely human. By unfairly enhancing our prospects with either drugs, doping or guerilla tactics, we enter into a realm of delusion and, in effect, opt out of the competition. If we forge ahead anyway we may obtain a personal record, but not one that the world is going to respect.
