How Can a Guy We’ve Seen Practically Naked Be Overexposed?
Michael Phelps is getting it while the getting is good. Look the other way on what some might call overexposure – he won eight gold medals! In one Olympics! I suggested a few months back that he’s the kind of superhero with worldwide appeal that would be great to lead this country out of the reputation latrine. But, that was before the economy hit the fan and I got to hear Barack Obama speak at length, another story altogether.
I was sincerely thrilled when Michael Phelps won that eighth medal. I was at a hotel in upstate New York, nervous from the moment Bob Costas was a little shy with his declaration as to when Phelps would swim. “In 57 minutes!” Not quite, but I wouldn’t dwell. I didn’t want to harbor any ill will lest my negative thoughts prevent Phelps from winning that eighth race (because that’s how it works, obviously). He swam, and he won, and for that second, all was right. This was no Patriots in the Super Bowl. Phelps should have won and did.
And it inspired me. I thought to myself then, “If Michael Phelps can win eight gold medals in one Olympics, maybe I can wake up those fifteen minutes earlier to do some pushups. I can tell you now that Phelps’ determination still far exceeds my own.
Here’s a tidbit: Over the summer, I decided I wanted to learn how to do a Rubik’s cube. I’d tried years earlier and it just didn’t take. But I watched the Dan Brown video online and using his techniques I was able not only to solve it, but to do so without my notes rather quickly, and then within the week do it in under three minutes - which, while not impressive to people really good at it, kind of blew my mind because it was something that was just entirely foreign to me for so long, yet something I always wanted to tackle. To finish that make me think of what else in my life has seemed impossible, yet is entirely feasible.
The tidbit really is this: I got to the point where I would solve the cube a number of times in a night, just to keep my hands and brain moving during the slower portions of the Olympics. When the swimming was on, though, I didn’t want to be solving the puzzle, I just wanted to pay attention. A commercial came up, and I knew I had just a couple of minutes to solve it. They came back from commercial… and I was still doing it. The swimmers were stretching, I was rotating. They got onto the starting platforms and just before the gun sounded… I finished the cube. I set it on the table next to me, a little out of breath from the endeavor. The race began, and as history can now tell us, that was the very race where the USA came from seconds behind to beat out the French. Phelps went NUTS, just screaming with the satisfaction that they won the race, Lezak set the split record, they stuffed it in the faces of the braggart French team, AND Phelps and his teammates kept his eight-medal hunt alive. Made the rest of the Olympics that much more incredible.
I haven’t solved the Rubik’s cube since. It sits in its stand, right on the mantle in my line of sight right now. I wouldn’t dare solve it after that race with the French. Sure enough, Phelps won out. Superstition is the double-edged sword of mental health that way – only by acting insane can one spare himself the possible regret of thinking he was responsible for a loss. Makes sense.
Now that I’ve written this up, I believe I am free to solve away at the cube. If it had a use in its solved form, it ended with Phelps on the podium that last time. But until I do mess it up just to solve it again, it’ll be a reminder of those moments this summer when everything fell into glorious, expected, predictable alignment. Things hardly, hardly ever turn out so crystalline in this life. For its sake, and for mine, it’s been nice to take the time to appreciate the perfection, touching and transient.
