I don't believe in the so-called Olympic spirit. I speak from personal experience. When China hosted the Games, it failed to include the people. The event was constructed without regard for their joy.
But other people also 'invite' us to behave like victims, when they complain about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask us to agree, to offer advice, to participate. Be careful. When you join in that game you always end up losing.
The moth don't care when he sees the flame
He might get burned, but he's in the game
And once he's in, he can't go back
He'll beat his wings till he burns them black
No, the moth don't care when he sees the flame
The moth don't care if the flame is real
'Cause flame and moth got a sweetheart deal
And nothing fuels a good flirtation
Like need and anger and desperation
No, the moth don't care if the flame is real.
You really have to bring your game and know what you want to do. And then, there are the producers and the writers and the director on the other side of the glass, and what they want. You have to be malleable to what's going to work, and you have to stay in the framework of the context.
The game of life does not proceed like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes they make five, or minus four, and sometimes the blackboard topples over in the middle of the sum and the pedagogue is left with a black eye.
The fools standpoint is that all social institutions are games. He sees the whole world as game playing. That's why, when people take their games seriously and take on stern and pious expressions, the fool gets the giggles because he knows that it is all a game.
I don't mind people trying to pick apart my policies, and that's fine and that's fair game. But, you know, I don't think we're serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil that people use words that they shouldn't be using.
Nowadays the field naturalist-who is usually at all points superior to the mere closet naturalist-follows a profession as full of hazard and interest as that of the explorer or of the big-game hunter in the remote wilderness.
The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages.
If we're serious about building an economy that lasts, we have got to get serious about education. We are going to have to pick up our games and raise our standards.