Overrated - Underrated

One of my favorite podcast segments is Tyler Cowen's overrated - underrated he does with guests.

How about this: the Olympics?

Underrated! I almost completely zoned out on the Olympics for at least a decade. I swear, I've totally and completely missed at least 4 of them. Like I didn't even remember they happened. But last night, caught some of the women's figure skating. Holy shit! What high drama! The two Russian girls....incredible. You have this frontrunner girl, having come back from injury, everybody unanimously thinks is the best in the world and then she gets upstaged completely by her 15 year old like protege. So this protege is just killing it and then in the final skate, the frontrunner who is just tense and you can just read on her face and body: ultra competitive, goes out and does the skate of her life. She's crying from emotion afterwards. Kills it. And then still loses by 1 point to the protege, who has the more natural talent and strength. I found it incredibly captivating. The frontrunner was like all soul and passion, the protege, all strength, grace, and talent. What a match up.

And this also...part of my prior dislike of the Olympic sports has to do with the stupidity of a lot of them. Luging? Biathlon? It's like who cares. And typically, I feel the same about ice skating. But my mind has flipped 180 degrees. I say, we ought to be embracing this absurd, and perhaps stupid pursuits of excellence. Because the pursuit of excellence is getting lost in our society today. With all the drumbeats of equality and diversity and metoo and victimhood, etc, what we need more of is beauty, aesthetics, tradition, and excellence. This is what the Olympics stands for and strange as it sounds, I think this thing that was getting lost is now needed much more than before.