My headline is quoting The Wall Street Journal. The full title of The Journal article from which I got my headline is as follows: "The Dirty Secret of Olympic Swimming: Everyone Pees in the Pool."
The Journal informs its readers that there is a pragmatic reason that accounts for what I would call the "piss-poor" behavior of Olympic athletes (both men and women alike):
This nasty habit isn’t just a lack of decorum. Swimmers insist there’s a good reason why they can’t do what most people learn by the age of four. At important competitions, swimmers hydrate until the last possible moment while also wearing ultra-tight suits meant to compress their bodies into the most hydrodynamic shape possible. It makes for a dangerous combination ... Swimmers know that after all the effort required to shimmy into their suits, a process that can take up to 20 minutes, going through the contortions again for a nature break isn’t worth it.
Of course, what happens at the Olympics is of specific interest right at the moment, which is why, I assume, The Journal focused its July 27, 2024, article on the habits of Olympic swimmers. In fact, however - without having undertaken any research that backs up this assertion - it is my strong suspicion that when someone says, "Everyone Pees In The Pool," it is likely that "everyone" is, actually, implicated, and not just Olympic athletes. "Everyone" includes "everyone." I am, I blush to confess, speaking from some personal experience (this was back in my youth).
When I read this article about pissing in the pool, it struck me that the phenomenon discussed (that "Everyone pees in the pool") could be seen as a specific example of a more general truth. "Everyone" (meaning, in fact, just about "everyone") does cut corners, on occasion, and breaks rules, and does things that no one could ever justify under that Kantian principle that we should "never act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” We all do this - cutting ourselves some slack when the rules are a real inconvenience, and when violating them doesn't seem too consequential. I do it. You do it. We do it.
Such behavior can't be "justified." It's not right. If you get caught, you should and do pay the penalty. Back when I was an attendant at the municipal swimming pool in Rinconada Park, in Palo Alto, I feel certain that any patron caught peeing in the pool would have been ejected, forthwith. I don't remember that ever happening, though.
Here's my thought, stimulated by the article in The Wall Street Journal. Let's have a little compassion for ourselves - and for everyone - and forgive ourselves for our trespasses. This is, in fact, an effective principle for governing our lives. We do live together, and we thus benefit - all of us benefit - from some forebearance and forgiveness for what are, truly, our human "failings."
As I understand the situation (for those not allergic to the word, "God") this principle of forgiveness is actually a basic demand made upon us, with the principle made efficacious by the promise that our own trespasses with be forgiven "as we forgive others." I am citing to the Lord's Prayer, of course, and this being a Sunday, that seems appropriate. Here it is, in full, for those who don't dip into the Bible much (with empahsis added):
Our Father, which art in heaven,Hallowed be thy Name.Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth,As it is in heaven.Give us this day our daily bread.And forgive us our trespasses,As we forgive them that trespass against us.And lead us not into temptation,But deliver us from evil.For thine is the kingdom,And the power, and the glory,For ever and ever.Amen
Image Credit:
https://www.wsj.com/sports/olympics/swimming-paris-games-pool-780dd98f
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment!