Unusually Perfect

There was a moment that happened in this year’s Olympics where I discovered my own prejudice and was floored.  I’d thought of myself as a fair sort of person.  Believing in free speech, anti racist, pro humanity generally a sort of “one people, one planet philosophy.  Then, this year while watching the Para Olympics there were endless close ups of disabled athletics competing and I found myself admiring the perfect physic of these highly trained Olympians.  Perhaps it was seeing for the first time a disabled athlete also in the main Olympics that reinforced the thought. 

I was aware that all too often my mind would be uplifted by their talent and strength and then register that missing limb and think, what a pity.  Perfection spoiled, as if a work of art had been damaged by a vicious assailant and lost the beauty that it possessed by right.  But this year their enthusiasm and talent suddenly blew that out of the water.  I don’t even know exactly when it happened but I remember the realization that this human is in better shape than you, faster, stronger, more talented and has made more effort in their short lives than you will in your entire life span.  I found myself seeing them as incredibly, beautiful, inspirational human beings, full of life and laughter and unusually perfect.