Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt has retired.
And it makes me feel old.
It seems like just yesterday that Usain Bolt chest thumped his way to a record breaking time of 9.69 sec in the Beijing Olympics.
Before the Beijing Olympics, Usain Bolt was being hyped as the next big thing in sprinting.
I remember watching with excitement and anticipation of something special about to happen and when it did happen, I was stunned in silence. Never before had I seen a performance so dominating. He destroyed the competition, celebrated with a chest thump before he crossed the line and still smashed the world record. Imagine breaking the world record and having people wonder how fast he could have been if only he didn't do the chest thump. He answered it next year in Berlin when he lowered the record to 9.58 sec.

Usain Bolt won the 100m, 200m and 4x100m Gold Medals in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics and broke the world record in all three events all in times that made even the past legends drop their jaw. Search for Michael Johnson's reaction on Usain Bolt's records for example. He also won numerous Gold medals at the World Championships and other events.

More than the records and the medals, Usain Bolt will forever be remembered for bringing the glamour back to sprinting. The 100m sprint has always attracted fans across the world. Whether you follow the sport regularly or are a casual fan or have never played any sport ever, com Olympics everyone tuned in to find out who the fastest human being was. For humans walking/running is the most natural physical activity and doing it as fast as you gets your competitive juices flowing.

However, for more than a couple of decades, the sport of sprinting suffered. The 100m race just didn't have that appeal. Make no mistake the athletes were running faster than ever but still it didn't generate the enthusiasm one associated with the premier event of the Olympics. Why was this? One word, doping.

When Ben Johnson beat Carl Lewis in a marquee matchup at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in a world record time of 9.79 it was universally lauded as the biggest moment in sprinting history. In three days, however, the euphoria came crashing down when Ben Johnson was found guilty of doping. For me it was the biggest shock of my life. I was old enough to understand that Ben Johnson had been disqualified for doing something illegal, but still young enough to be confused about why anyone would cheat.

The ghost of Ben Johnson was always present in the next couple of Olympics. Even when Donovan Bailey set a new world record of 9.84 in the 1996 Olympics, it just didn't feel important. We had seen 9.79 even though it carried the taint of doping. Could humans not run faster without doping ? When Maurice Greene finally matched Ben Johnson's 9.79 , the reaction wad more relief than ecstasy. The ghost of doping was finally behind us.

Or was it? The highest profile athlete in women's sprinting, Marion Jones, was found guilty of doping. Justin Gatlin who won the 2004 Olympics Gold medal has been banned twice for doping. Maurice Greene himself has a cloud of suspicion over him. Tyson Gay, the second fastest human being in history has been banned for doping. On a side note, for all the posturing the USA does when athletes from other nations are found guilty of doping, it has a lot to answer for it's own transgressions. Nesta Carter was found guilty of doping costing Usain and Jamaica the gold in 4x100m in the Beijing Olympics.

When you add all the doping scandals, you begin to understand just how invaluable Usain Bolt has been for sprinting. For all his incredulous records, there isn't even a hint of suspicion on him. He has welcomed all tests and never had even a minor infraction. He has publicly spoken against doping and cheating of all types. Not only did he stretch the boundaries of human excellence, he showed us progress is possible through sheer determination and grit. And natural evolution, to be fair. No doping required.

Usain Bolt brought the glamour back to sprinting. People are interested in who will be the next Usain Bolt. More importantly, Usain Bolt made us believe humans will get stronger, faster and reach higher just by persisting.

When my nephew runs fast and poses as Usain Bolt, I feel happy and proud to tell him about the greatest athlete of all time.

Thank you, Usain Bolt.

Regarding God

Let's indulge in a thought experiment that everyone has an opinion on.

Does God exist ?

Almost everyone has an immediate response to this question.

I am an atheist and my immediate answer is, No, there is no such thing as a God.

Case closed.

Before we do that, let us think about it  some more. After all what is a thought experiment if we don't think.

I am always fascinated with picturing the first person who thought to himself, "Hmm, is there a God?". The realization that there is some entity that controls life would be more profound for him/her than the realization that God doesn't exist is to a person today. Imagine that you are the foremost thinker of your time, primitive as it might be. Most people around you are occupied with survival, while you have the time and ability to try and make sense of things happening around you. What is the mysterious ball of fire in the sky that lights up the world around you every morning? What causes rain? Why do people suddenly fall sick? Where do all these fruits and plants come from? Imagine that, and now imagine coming to the logical conclusion that there must be some invisible force controlling all aspects of life around you. Without knowing it's shape or form, you just realized there is a God. Now that is life changing.

Imagine trying to convince your fellow humans of the existence of God, when all they know is they can control their own life whether it is hunting or gathering for food, fighting predators or sheltering themselves from elements of nature. They may not be able to explain why things are the way they are but they know how to get the job done and survive. Convincing someone that there is a God then, sure seems a lot harder than convincing someone that God doesn't exist in today's time.

Whichever way it started, the concept of God is at least as old as recorded human history. We don't know if dinosaurs worshipped any God or for that matter, if any animals coexisting with humans do. Humans, however, have worshipped God in some form or other as far back as we have records.

Ancient history shows humans worshipping multiple Gods. These Gods represent various aspects of nature. Sometimes they are the objects observable in the sky like the sun and the moon. Sometimes they are natural features on the earth like the rivers and mountains. Some represent the basic elements like water and fire. Some look like animals, while others posses powers to cause events like thunder and storms.

Interestingly, the pantheon of gods across various ancient cultures have a lot of similarities. Whether it is Zeus or Thor or Indra, somewhere these cultures must have crossed paths to give them all the power to create thunder.

One thing is clear though that ancient humans strongly believed that these gods could influence natural events around them and appeasing them via prayers was the key to prosperity. This suggests a strong purpose for the idea of God to exist and be popular.

Everything that can't be explained can be conveniently attributed to God, until a suitable explanation is found.

Now that human understanding has evolved to explain natural calamities, climate changes and such things, the role of the many Gods responsible for them has greatly diminished. Nobody prays to Thor or Indra for thunder and rains anymore, well, at least not the majority.

Essentially God is a placeholder for anything that can't be explained.

Note : I tried to complete this topic in one post but there is a lot more to explore here and I am not finding the time to compose my thoughts concisely. It is best to split this in multiple posts. I will write more on this as I find time in future posts.

A New Resolution

One of my all-time favorite movie is Gandhi. In some ways, I am more of a fan of the movie than the Mahatma himself. Everytime I watch the movie there is something new that I learn. Given that the movie is shown every year on TV in India I have watched it many times over.

There are many things to learn for self improvement in the movie, but one thing that has stuck with me is about social responsibility. How does one bring about a change? How does one influence the masses? What really makes a difference? The answer as I found out from the movie is writing.

There are many important events from India's struggle for Independence depicted in the movie. One common thread in all of them is , someone was writing about it and shaping the opinion of the readers. When a group of students asks Gandhi about how they can help with the famine crisis in Champaran, Gandhi asks them to document the plight of the people and report it sincerely. During the Dandi march, there is an American reporter, reporting all the events in detail. These and writings by others helped raise awareness about the atrocities by the British. In a way, they were instrumental in  creating a momentum that led to the India winning its Independence from the British.

If you look closely, history is shaped by people who write.
If you take it a step further, writing is a form of communication.
Effectively, history is shaped by people who communicate.

If you want to make a change start communicating. Whatever ideas you have, they will only grow if you communicate them. If you keep those ideas to yourself, they will die with you.

Looking back, I can clearly see, many opportunities where I could have made a difference by just communicating. Unfortunately I never felt confident enough to communicate and those opportunities are lost forever.

This blog itself has been years in making. A decade almost. I just have never found the will to write.

Those who know me closely, know that I have opinions on just about everything. I have never put them down in a form that can be shared with a wider audience.

I resolve to write more often on this blog henceforth. If nothing else, this should be an interesting collection of random opinions and useless thought experiments.